earth

Leah Anthony Libresco: A tale of phrenologists and predatory lenders

July 6, 2010

In Tennessee, defendants won a court case in which prosecutors had attempted to stop them from marketing a service that was to be “inherently fraudulent.” No, the above is not the latest update on the battle over overdraft fees and payday loans. The embattled businessmen were not part of the banking industry currently trying to lobby their way out of regulation, but a group of fortune tellers, who were successful in striking down a local ordinance requiring all fortunetellers, clairvoyants, hypnotists, phrenologists, etc. to post a disclaimer if they attempted to ply their trade for profit. The plaintiffs didn’t seek to outlaw fortunetelling per se, they just wanted the psychics held to some standard of truth in advertising. If the psychics couldn’t provide evidence to back up their own hype, well, that was just too bad. The rhetoric Barbara Moss, one of the attorneys for the psychics, argued that selling is a form of protected speech. She said: “A person is free to write or sell books saying that the earth is flat or the moon is made of green cheese. Our client should be free to make predictions, for fun or profit, without government interference.” This argument fails to recognize that there is a difference between claiming the moon is made of cheese and selling your cheese to gullible customers by marketing it as genuine moon-cheese, shipped back by satellite. The question comes up again and again for regulators and lawmakers. When is a product so harmful that it ought not be sold at all? When is a product so noxious that we can conclude that no one would freely choose to buy it if they were fully informed? This is what is at the root of many of our debates over cigarettes and other mostly toxic products. Companies argue that the existence of a market for the product shows that customers have judged what they’re selling to be worth the risk. This is the argument we keep hearing as the Senate lumbers towards passing a financial reform bill. The status quo is justified by its own existence, since no financial product or service would exist if there weren’t an eager market of perfectly rational actors eager to buy. This assertion ignores the fact that, even if most consumers were never used biased heuristics when making decisions, the choices of rational actors are only as good as the data they use to decide. Efforts to refine and simplify the data available to consumers is one of the most important avenues of reform. A recent study found that, when the actual costs of a payday loan are added to the standard disclosure of APR, people turn down the loans. Payday loans, at least in part, are a problem of limited information and education. The obvious solution is ensuring better financial education for all. But, given the our current inability to make sure high school graduates understand basic math, that day may be long in coming. Until we have a reasonable expectation that consumers are able to access and evaluate the data required to identify predatory loans, government regulation should fill the gap. Government regulation of financial services does limit the choices of consumers. That is its purpose. When we are unable to discern the correct choice, and the stakes are high, we ask other people to take the choice away from us and place it in the hands of people who know better. Just as the responsible drinker hands over her keys when she heads out to a party, we turn to regulatory limitations to prevent us from making choices that could harm us or others. People who are misinformed do not know that their reasoning is compromised. If we were capable of knowing which choices we couldn’t be trusted to make sensibly, we would be able to make them correctly in the first place. Psychologists call this problem the Dunning-Kruger Effect . Paternalistic regulations exist to help you make the choice you would have made if you were fully informed, and the financial sector, with its tiny print and deceptive practices (how many pleas from banks to not let your overdraft protection lapse did you get this summer?) is crying out for reform. Our banking system nearly collapsed because some quants claimed supernatural powers of prognostication. Let’s see if we can hold consumer credit providers to a higher standard than street corner clairvoyants.

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Jan Phillips: Sparking the Collective Imagination

June 30, 2010

I read about an executive who had a real flat response from his employees when he put out the question “How can we best the best company in the world?” There was a long pause and a deep silence in the room until a worker said, “How about this: how can we be the best company FOR the world?” And that was the question that charged everyone’s imaginations and started everyone thinking creatively. It’s not about what we can get. It’s more about what we can give. And it’s our giving that opens the door to all the abundance we are going to receive in the world, as a person or a corporation. Just as a battery is charged by the union of positive and negative forces, just as a child is conceived by the union of a male sperm and female ovum, just as a thought issues forth from the union of right and left brain, so does original thinking emerge from the practice of joining “us” and “them” into a “we.” Our imaginations are the most potent engines of change in the universe. There is no doubt that we can evolve ourselves forward once we replace our dualistic thinking with thought processes that re-pair the opposites and cause convergence. In this matter, emotions are essential. They are our guide, our body’s means of instant messaging to the brain. Yes, this decision is wise. No, that choice is unwise. Our bodies are hardwired for survival of the species, and if we listen deeply to them, if we are wise enough to trust the feelings they emanate on our behalf, then we will find the clarity necessary to make inspired choices that are as good for the whole as they are for the one, which is an absolute prerequisite for thought leadership today. And because the work of transforming our own thought processes is so evolutionary an act, it requires the total engagement of body, mind, and spirit. This is not business as usual. This is reorienting to a new star. We are organisms in a constant state of flux, exposed to an ever-changing environment, and the more we inquire into our own state of consciousness and notice the evolution of our own ideas, the more aware we become of our place in the family of things. As a civilization, we are shifting out of an industrial, assembly-line mindset of isolated units into an organic, knowledge-based network of communities. There is a tectonic shift of consciousness occurring and an evolutionary tendency away from the mechanical and back toward the natural. This may be seen as Mother Nature’s mid-course correction. As the thinking neurons of the planet, biologically oriented toward survival, we are finding ways of connecting and communicating with unimaginable speed and precision. Someone has calculated that we can globally transmit the contents of the Library of Congress across a single fiber optic line in 1.6 seconds. Science and nature have announced their engagement. It is not the task of creators to know the answers, but to articulate the questions we face as a people and to call us together to create our solutions. This is the potential of corporate America–to re-think their structures and processes in such a way that they become furnaces of inspiration, centers of creative ingenuity, arbiters of a culture conscious enough to bring the whole human family into the picture. The profits from such an endeavor–materially, culturally, spiritually–could overwhelm the most skeptic imagination. Thought leaders do not think in terms of “me” and “mine.” They think in terms of “we” and “ours.” They do not think outside the box, they live outside the box. No matter what their address, they think of themselves as global citizens, responsible to the earth, responsible to the human family, and aware that their well-being is tied to the well-being of others. They are balanced and in tune with their own inner life, and they are awake to the immense possibilities that erupt when the inner lives and imaginations of their colleagues are fully engaged. These are the kinds of alliances that can emerge when we change our questions from “What can we gain?” to “What can we give?” Businesses have always been on the cutting edge of creative innovation, and finding ways of bridging their bottom line concerns with the basic needs of the poor opens up whole new avenues for win-win solutions. There is a tremendous opportunity here for commercial enterprises that balance commerce with compassion, that reframe “the poor” from a category of charity to a category of collaborator, and that imagine new ways of working with and in these communities so that everyone benefits. -from The Art of Original Thinking

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DK Matai: Japan Takes Lead in Wireless Power? 21stC Global Energy Supply

June 13, 2010

In the footsteps of Nicola Tesla , Japan intends to send its first solar-panel-equipped satellite into space that could wirelessly beam Gigawatt-strong streams of power down to earth, each enough to power nearly 300,000 homes eco-efficiently. A Gigawatt is what a mid-size nuclear power station produces. Putting solar panels in space bypasses many of the difficulties of installing them on Earth. In orbit, there are no cloudy days, very few zoning laws, and the cold ambient temperature is ideal for causing the least amount of weathering and degradation in performance. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are leading the project. They plan to launch a small satellite fitted with solar panels in the coming few years, and test beaming the electricity from space through the ionosphere, the outermost layer of the earth’s atmosphere. The full-fledged satellites will have a surface area of four square kilometres each, and transmit power via microwaves to a base station on Earth. Japan’s eventual plan is to have a Space Solar Power System (SSPS), in which arrays of photovoltaic dishes several square kilometres in size would hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth’s atmosphere. The entire system is likely to be fully operational in stages in the coming two decades. The USD 21 billion Wireless Power Transmission (WPT) project has received major backing from Mitsubishi and designer IHI, in addition to research teams from 14 other countries. Space Solar Power System (SSPS) 21st Century Innovations Innovations enabled by Wireless Power Transmission (WPT), originally pioneered by Tesla, are likely to exert profound influence on global business and national competitiveness. The key issue with wireless power solutions is not whether humanity can deploy them; but whether we can deploy them safely and efficiently. It turns out the human body is not affected by magnetic fields; it is affected by electric fields. So what needs to be done in Wireless Power Transmission (WPT) is to transmit the energy using the magnetic field whilst minimising the electric field. Commercial opportunities from WPT include: 1. Long Range Cars: Roadway powered electric vehicles may charge electric batteries via WPT from microwave generators embedded in the roadway while a vehicle is travelling at highway speed. This eliminates stops to exchange or recharge batteries greatly extending travel range. Japan proposed wireless charging of electric motor vehicles by Microwave Power Transmission (MPT) in 2004. 2. Long Endurance Aircraft: High-altitude aircraft may be maintained at a desired location for weeks or months for communications and surveillance instead of satellites. This greatly reduces costs. The world’s first Microwave Power Transmission (MPT) in the ionosphere called the MINIX — Microwave Ionosphere Non-linear Interaction eXperiment — was demonstrated in Japan in 1983. The world’s first fuel free airplane powered by microwave energy broadcast from the ground was tested in Canada in 1987. This system is called SHARP or Stationary High-Altitude Relay Platform. In 2003, Dryden Flight Research Centre of NASA demonstrated a laser powered remote control airplane. 3. Power Relay Satellites can access remote energy sources by uncoupling primary electricity generation from terrestrial transmission lines. Power is transmitted from distant sites to geosynchronous orbits and then reflected by Power Relay Satellites to a receiver on Earth in a desired location. 4. Solar Power Satellites (SPS) in low-Earth or geosynchronous orbits or on the Moon can be utilised to supply terrestrial power demands on a global scale. 5. Intel has demonstrated the wireless powering of a 60 watt light bulb with 75% efficiency in 2008 using their Wireless Energy Resonant Link . Potential applications include the rigging of airports, offices and other buildings to supply wireless power to laptops, mobile telephones and other electronic devices added to them. Initially WPT eliminates chargers and eventually it eliminates batteries altogether. Eco-efficiency High level response to our briefing, ” Beyond Oil: Beginning of a New Era? ” concludes that post the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher in 2010 and mounting public pressure, a massive restructuring of the energy industry sector may be in the offing, as profound changes on a global scale are set in motion. These changes could be a complex combination of: 1. Strict conservation measures and environmental regulations being enacted across the globe; 2. Accelerated global industrialisation hitting natural resource limits; and 3. Restricted and highly-efficient consumption of fossil fuels because of the unprecedented manifestation of severe risk to Earth’s ecology. Humanity is in need of a new power source and more efficient distribution and consumption of power. Fossil fuels are dirty, dangerous to extract and transport, and will eventually run out. Nuclear power is cleaner in production but has its own waste issues and a catastrophic failure could present a near doomsday scenario as well as spent fuel being used as a weapon. Ground based solar power can be too small scale and inefficient, but Solar Power Satellites (SPS) are ground-breaking. This is the big idea that makes large-scale unencumbered solar power work because one isn’t covering the countryside with panels, or receiving intermittent power as weather changes. With WPT, ‘transporting’ the remote solar power becomes much more efficient making it usable virtually everywhere on Earth. Wireless Power Transmission (WPT) Per our original briefing, ” Wireless Power: Has The Time Come? ” the vision of achieving WPT on a global scale was proposed over a century ago when Nikola Tesla, the inventor of Alternating Current (AC) power generation, first started experiments with WPT. This culminated with the construction of the Wardenclyffe tower for WPT on Long Island, New York, at the start of the 20th century. Tesla’s objective was to develop the technology for transmitting electricity to anywhere in the world without wires. He filed several patents describing wireless power transmitters and receivers. He was awarded the patent for wireless radio in 1940. Two basic alternatives are available for WPT: radio waves (microwaves) and light waves (lasers). Radio waves are beamed in a cloud-penetrating radio-frequency band reserved for Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) applications. Light waves are beamed in a wavelength which can be generated efficiently and easily transmitted through the atmosphere in the optical or infra-red “window”. Reducing Losses via WPT One of the major issues in global power systems is the loss which occurs during the transmission and distribution of electrical power. As the demand increases day by day, the power generation increases and the power loss is also increased. The percentage of loss of power during transmission and distribution is approximated at 25% or much higher. The main reason for power loss during transmission and distribution is the resistance of wires used for the grid. The efficiency of power transmission can be improved to a certain extent by using high strength composite over head conductors and underground cables that use high temperature super conductors. But the transmission is still inefficient. WPT can significantly reduce the terrestrial losses by providing a highly efficient quantum jump — near 10% pickup in efficiency — for alternative energy power transfer and distribution. That is an important incremental step because it also allows for the extension of electricity to transportation. One could simply argue that the less fuel that is used in transportation the safer, greener, and more efficient we get. This is a positive by itself, because of the incremental nature of the gains. USA: NASA and DoE In the US, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Energy (DoE) have spent significant sums over three decades in not so coherent — somewhat sporadic — efforts to study solar generation in space, according to a 2007 report by the US National Security Space Office. The deployment of WPT was not effectively pursued until the 1960s when the US Air Force funded the development of a microwave-powered helicopter platform. A successful demonstration of a microwave beam-riding helicopter was performed in 1965. This demonstration proved that a WPT system could be constructed and that effective microwave generators and receivers could be developed for efficient conversion of microwaves into DC electricity. In 1975, a successful demonstration of microwave wireless power transmissions was performed at the NASA Deep Space Antenna facility at Goldstone, California. In this demonstration of point-to-point WPT, 30 kW of microwaves were beamed over a distance of one mile to a receiving antenna. Microwaves were converted directly into DC at an average efficiency of 82%, confounding critics who claimed that such high conversion efficiencies could not be achieved. By 1976 engineering, environmental, and economic analyses of several Solar Power Satellite (SPS) concepts had been performed by NASA. WPT systems have not been considered seriously for civilian purposes by US government agencies since 1980. However, the mood has been changing in favour of WPT in recent years. However, nascent efforts in regard to Space Solar Power (SSP) and WPT by NASA are likely to be trimmed by the recent focus on budget deficit reductions. Conclusion The demand for power on Earth is growing exponentially, and associated environmental consequences are becoming significant. Global electric power production is about a USD 1 trillion per year market currently, and represents the largest market on Earth. In this new century, Space Solar Power (SSP) may provide a clean, safe energy source, alleviating some of the problems we would otherwise expect from increasing nuclear and fossil fuel use. SSP combined with Wireless Power Transmission (WPT), offers the far-term potential to solve major energy problems on Earth. WPT is an enabling technology for utilising renewable and inexhaustible energy sources on Earth and in space to meet projected electrical energy demands in the 21st century on a global scale. With few energy resources of its own and heavily reliant on oil imports, Japan has long been a leader in solar and other renewable energies. The current opportunities that Japan’s nascent Wireless Power Transmission (WPT) industry is providing will be the basis not only for energy independence domestically from imported energy sources, but as a supplier of “clean” energy, Japan is likely to gain significant political influence and leverage globally. Penetration of this market by gradually substituting WPT to access renewable and inexhaustible energy sources anywhere on Earth and in space is an opportunity that Japan has clearly recognised. The implications of successful developments of WPT systems by the Japanese are profound enough to merit a deliberate US or European competitive decision either to pursue further coherent development of WPT or to abandon pursuit of WPT markets to other countries. The consequences of abandoning WPT may include adverse impact on Western industrial competitiveness in the 21st century and beyond. It is now obvious that: 1. Nicola Tesla and his early 20th century unique work in regard to Wireless Power generation and transmission was extremely far sighted and accurate; 2. The Japanese government and multi-nationals are committing tens of billions of dollars to the deployment of SSP and WPT because this is a lucrative area; and 3. Given the fallout from the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe, there is going to be little choice left other than to move towards SSP and WPT type solutions. The Western nations including the US and Europe are still in a position to lead a Space Solar Power (SSP) and Wireless Power Transmission (WPT) effort but not for long. The question is not whether we harness power from space; but rather who will get there first to garner first mover advantage with significant impact on global economic competitiveness. Now is the time to plan for the WPT future that can be discerned in broad outlines only. The inability to see the future except as a continuation of the present and not to plan for asymmetric threats and opportunities will prevent critical technological evolution and progress. Maximising the opportunities to participate in the development and applications of SSP and WPT systems would provide not only an outlet for the considerable experience and talents residing in the global aerospace and manufacturing industries, but ensure that these industries remain competitive in the markets for environmentally compatible energy sources where carbon based fuels are no longer the essential element for electrical power generation. The evolution of the human species into the cosmos, including harnessing the moon and immediate outer space, appears to provide a viable space solar and wireless power solution. There is no turning back from this final frontier in the 21st century and beyond!

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Video: Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Pooley Discusses Global Warming: Video

June 11, 2010

June 11 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg Businessweek’s Eric Pooley talks with Bloomberg’s Matt Miller about his book “The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth” and BP Plc. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Video: Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Pooley Discusses Global Warming: Video

June 11, 2010

June 11 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg Businessweek’s Eric Pooley talks with Bloomberg’s Matt Miller about his book “The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth” and BP Plc. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Richard Greener: BP Has An Ace Up Its Sleeve. Watch Out!

June 11, 2010

Scream as loud as you like. In this political poker game, BP’s holding a winning hand. The longer we go without stopping the oil leak and the closer we get to realizing the true scope of the damage, the angrier the American people will get. When that righteous anger finally boils over, that’s when BP will play their hole card. It’s not really BP’s alone. The sleeve, the whole shirt actually, belongs to the entire oil industry. The hidden ace is sometimes called the “Selfish American Card.” What it means is this — Americans are not willingly pay the price for this disaster. We’re too selfish. We won’t pay. And what won’t we pay for? All the costs that come after we make BP pay. The cost to stop the leak. To clean up the mess. To repair the lives of millions of our fellow citizens. And it’s not just the costs that flow from this spill. It’s all the spills yet to come — and they will. No one knows this better than the oil industry. Once you get away from the shoreline, far from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida (we won’t even talk about Texas or Alaska), Americans will not care. You can put all the oil-soaked, dying birds you want on TV; show us the oily beaches and ravaged wetlands; make us stare into the faces of the men, women and children whose lives have been shattered. Believe me. Nobody will agree to pay more at the pump to make these places and these people whole again. Nobody really wants to stop offshore drilling. We can’t. We’re addicts. You doubt this? Check the facts. Then tell me you still have doubts. Sorry, but the people who live where offshore drilling exists are on their own, now and in the future. Everyday, around the globe, about 85 million barrels of oil pour into the human community. The United States, with less than 5% of the world’s population, uses 24.3% of that oil. Nearly a quarter of the world’s gasoline burned everyday by 1/20th of the people who live on this planet. We produce about 5.8% ourselves, and about a third of it from offshore drilling. How many gallons of gas from offshore drilling are we talking about? I hope you’re sitting down. The Minerals Management Service reports 527 million barrels a year from offshore wells. That’s 23.5 billion gallons of gas! View this from a wider perspective. China, with 19.6 of all human beings, consumes only 8.9% of the world’s gasoline. The European Union, with slightly more people than the United States, uses 16.9%. India, home to 17.3% of all people on Earth, uses a tiny 3.1% of the gasoline. So, the US and Europe, with 1/10th the world’s population uses an astounding 41.2% of the world oil supply, while China and India, with 36.9% of the human population uses only 12%. Americans should ask, for safety sake if no other reason — how long can we get away with that? And how could we possibly survive without our own offshore drilling? When the pressure builds to the bursting point, we will turn our backs on our brothers along the Gulf Coast. Here’s why. The best selling motor vehicle in the US is the Ford F-Series truck. There are more than 33 million of them. The #3 best seller is Chevy’s Silverado, and #8 is the Dodge Ram. The Ford has a fuel tank that holds 40 gallons. Silverado’s tank tops out at 26 gallons, and the Dodge Ram — again, I hope your sitting — it has a maximum capacity of 52 gallons. If we scare the oil companies — and hanging BP out to dry over this Gulf spill will do just that — they will grab us by our wallets and squeeze so hard we’ll give them anything. They will make Cheney’s waterboarding look like a picnic. How about gasoline prices here at costs already common in Europe? Are you up for it? Fill your tank in The Netherlands and you’ll shell out $7 bucks a gallon. A Ford F-Series would cost $280 to fill up. The Silverado $182. And the Dodge Ram (ouch!) $364 bucks. You think Big Oil will stop there? How long would Obama be able to withstand $12 a gallon gas? The Ford would cost $480 for a fill up. The Silverado jumps to $312, and your Dodge Ram (if you can afford one), $624 just to fill it up! Now do you understand the “Selfish American Card” tucked up BP’s sleeve? There are about 310 million of us here in the United States. How many will willingly part with $150-$200 each time they get gas? Who among us will pay double that? It’s no longer, “when the rubber meets the road.” Now it’s when the gas pump reads a number that turns the contents of your colon liquid. Sure, we all love New Orleans, but… Hey, wait a minute! BP has an ace up its sleeve all right. The more we holler for them to “get the job done” — the more we insist they pay, the closer they get to playing it. The “Selfish American Card.” How easy will it be to frighten us, to raise the specter of $7 gas, $12 gas, even $15 gas? A lot easier than you think. If you live along the Gulf Coast, I feel sorry for you. If you live in The Rest Of America, don’t fool yourself, or feel guilty about being so selfish. You’re not alone.

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Richard Greener: BP Has An Ace Up Its Sleeve. Watch Out!

June 11, 2010

Scream as loud as you like. In this political poker game, BP’s holding a winning hand. The longer we go without stopping the oil leak and the closer we get to realizing the true scope of the damage, the angrier the American people will get. When that righteous anger finally boils over, that’s when BP will play their hole card. It’s not really BP’s alone. The sleeve, the whole shirt actually, belongs to the entire oil industry. The hidden ace is sometimes called the “Selfish American Card.” What it means is this — Americans are not willingly pay the price for this disaster. We’re too selfish. We won’t pay. And what won’t we pay for? All the costs that come after we make BP pay. The cost to stop the leak. To clean up the mess. To repair the lives of millions of our fellow citizens. And it’s not just the costs that flow from this spill. It’s all the spills yet to come — and they will. No one knows this better than the oil industry. Once you get away from the shoreline, far from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida (we won’t even talk about Texas or Alaska), Americans will not care. You can put all the oil-soaked, dying birds you want on TV; show us the oily beaches and ravaged wetlands; make us stare into the faces of the men, women and children whose lives have been shattered. Believe me. Nobody will agree to pay more at the pump to make these places and these people whole again. Nobody really wants to stop offshore drilling. We can’t. We’re addicts. You doubt this? Check the facts. Then tell me you still have doubts. Sorry, but the people who live where offshore drilling exists are on their own, now and in the future. Everyday, around the globe, about 85 million barrels of oil pour into the human community. The United States, with less than 5% of the world’s population, uses 24.3% of that oil. Nearly a quarter of the world’s gasoline burned everyday by 1/20th of the people who live on this planet. We produce about 5.8% ourselves, and about a third of it from offshore drilling. How many gallons of gas from offshore drilling are we talking about? I hope you’re sitting down. The Minerals Management Service reports 527 million barrels a year from offshore wells. That’s 23.5 billion gallons of gas! View this from a wider perspective. China, with 19.6 of all human beings, consumes only 8.9% of the world’s gasoline. The European Union, with slightly more people than the United States, uses 16.9%. India, home to 17.3% of all people on Earth, uses a tiny 3.1% of the gasoline. So, the US and Europe, with 1/10th the world’s population uses an astounding 41.2% of the world oil supply, while China and India, with 36.9% of the human population uses only 12%. Americans should ask, for safety sake if no other reason — how long can we get away with that? And how could we possibly survive without our own offshore drilling? When the pressure builds to the bursting point, we will turn our backs on our brothers along the Gulf Coast. Here’s why. The best selling motor vehicle in the US is the Ford F-Series truck. There are more than 33 million of them. The #3 best seller is Chevy’s Silverado, and #8 is the Dodge Ram. The Ford has a fuel tank that holds 40 gallons. Silverado’s tank tops out at 26 gallons, and the Dodge Ram — again, I hope your sitting — it has a maximum capacity of 52 gallons. If we scare the oil companies — and hanging BP out to dry over this Gulf spill will do just that — they will grab us by our wallets and squeeze so hard we’ll give them anything. They will make Cheney’s waterboarding look like a picnic. How about gasoline prices here at costs already common in Europe? Are you up for it? Fill your tank in The Netherlands and you’ll shell out $7 bucks a gallon. A Ford F-Series would cost $280 to fill up. The Silverado $182. And the Dodge Ram (ouch!) $364 bucks. You think Big Oil will stop there? How long would Obama be able to withstand $12 a gallon gas? The Ford would cost $480 for a fill up. The Silverado jumps to $312, and your Dodge Ram (if you can afford one), $624 just to fill it up! Now do you understand the “Selfish American Card” tucked up BP’s sleeve? There are about 310 million of us here in the United States. How many will willingly part with $150-$200 each time they get gas? Who among us will pay double that? It’s no longer, “when the rubber meets the road.” Now it’s when the gas pump reads a number that turns the contents of your colon liquid. Sure, we all love New Orleans, but… Hey, wait a minute! BP has an ace up its sleeve all right. The more we holler for them to “get the job done” — the more we insist they pay, the closer they get to playing it. The “Selfish American Card.” How easy will it be to frighten us, to raise the specter of $7 gas, $12 gas, even $15 gas? A lot easier than you think. If you live along the Gulf Coast, I feel sorry for you. If you live in The Rest Of America, don’t fool yourself, or feel guilty about being so selfish. You’re not alone.

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Caroline Myss: Mother Nature Has Politically Come of Age

June 7, 2010

Continually in the backrooms of the power centers of the nations on this planet are information hubs stocked with people whose job it is to be “star gazers”. These “star gazers” are not astrologers as such; rather, they have their own more sophisticated methods of doing the same thing, more or less, which is they are in the business of predictions. Their job is to anticipate trends and movements in the marketplace, in other governments, in changing weather patterns and how that might effect crop cycles, in potential mega corporate mergers, in all forms of the brokerage of power. Financial and political power centers love this futuristic data. It converts to potential hedge fund activity, potential political moves, and potential mergers – in short, the management of potential power in all its expressions. I recall reading a book way back when entitled, “A Global Report Until the Year 2000″, that was initiated by then President Jimmy Carter, which was filled with exactly this type of data — predictions and anticipations of potential major changes in the theater of operations of Planet Earth. One of the conclusions that struck me in this book that I read decades ago related to the potential causes that might lead to global conflict: water rights. For all the many issues that faced the world then, and there were many, still, by comparison, terrorism had yet to come into its own and world markets had yet to become as fragile as my mother’s crystal. Nonetheless, one of the central themes of this report was that by the end of the 20th Century, the most likely cause of a global conflict would be over a lack of fresh water — an impending ecological disaster. As I look over the past decade of America’s history, without a doubt four of the most formative events that the “star gazers” did not see coming, no matter how sophisticated their mathematical formulas and calculations of probabilities and possibilities, were: 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the subprime mortgage disaster, and now the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Of these four, two are environmental, which is to say, enterprises of Mother Nature. Obviously, the Gulf oil leak is the result of the carelessness of human technology brought about by deregulated safety procedures, just as the devastation brought about by Katrina was far greater than it had to be because of the carelessness of not repairing levees that should have been updated. But the lack of preparedness for a major catastrophe is itself a statement of how British Petroleum and other oil companies view environmental disasters: it’s not the environment that is at risk but the loss of oil dollars. The environment for hardcore oil profiteers is just a place from which to “drill, baby, drill.” It’s not an alive ecosystem of which they, also, are an integral part. Had BP really valued and respected the environment, it would have prepared far more safe guards on its oil platform, and at the very least, disaster plans that parallel every action they undertake in drilling. Had the government cared about the environment, regulations demanding better safety procedures would have been in place. One could say, perhaps, that this is a type of cooperative disaster – one that was initiated by the carelessness of business and government but it’s Mother Nature that is revealing to everyone what the cost to everyone and everything is when her eco-system is so blatantly treated with disrespect. But this disaster does not just reveal how BP interacts with nature. I suspect that BP is no different than any other oil company. They are, after all, in the business of sucking the oil out of the earth at any cost — and now cost us all it will. Anticipating the actual cost of this disaster is virtually impossible because there is no end in sight to this leak. And now the brain trusts that got us into this disaster have even suggested the use of nuclear weapons to get us out – nuke the leak. Right. Hmm. Seems to me that would be the same as a physician offering to shoot the cancer growing in a patient because the chemo wasn’t working as planned. Brilliant, BP… Hurricane season has yet to begin and who knows how many hurricanes the Gulf will have, how intense they will be, and how far the winds and rain will distribute the toxic oil that now covers the once gorgeous waters of the inland areas around the Gulf. If we follow this latest hair brained plan, not only will we have to anticipate oil covering miles and miles of inland territory; now we will also have to worry about water contaminated with nuclear waste. This is a genius solution in the making. Even if they tossed out this suggestion by now, the fact that it would even be placed on the table for consideration is a measure of their detachment from “ecological reality”, not to mention their responsibilities as a company that drills for oil in gulf waters. Then there’s the loss of sea life which is yet another incalculable figure. And of course, we have the drop in value to coastal property and a dramatic drop in the coastal vacation industry. And I haven’t even mentioned the fishing industry – do I even have to? The Gulf is headed toward becoming a mortuary. And finally, we can only wait to see how sick the people will become who are now forced to breath the fumes from all of this unrefined oil, with all its toxins and gas. It was only a matter of time before the Republican’s began to call this “Obama’s Katrina”. That’s not surprising. While Obama is hardly responsible for the loose regulations that allowed for the possibility of accidents on oil rigs, he is the President in the hot seat. It’s now up to him to respond to this situation both in terms of demanding the most out of BP and future legislation that insures such a disaster can never happen again. He is also no doubt aware that Katrina was indeed a turning point for Bush in that respect for his administration — what little there was left to respect by the time Katrina hit — took a sharp nose dive, never to repair itself. Further, while the nation refused to evaluate Bush’s incompetence as a war leader, his inability to lead when it came to a natural disaster crisis on the home front was just too obvious. Staring at the ruins of New Orleans from his safe, clean little airplane, like a little boy on a carnival ride, revealed to all Americans that this former President should never have been allowed near the White House except as a tourist. While he knew how to start a crisis, he had no idea how to assist in a crisis unless he could bomb it, threaten it, or misspell it. In the end, the legacy of George Bush was greatly influence by the disasters of war and the power of Mother Nature. Even Obama must realize that like the presidency of George Bush, this crisis has the potential of becoming a political game changer for him if a successful outcome is too long in coming or worse, nowhere to be found. It’s just that one extra disaster added to a list of disasters breaking the back of America that has what it takes to reshape the destiny of this president, and thus this nation. If any of those hired “star gazers” had any real vision at this point, they would get the picture that Mother Nature has what it takes to swing an election, to influence politics, to do great damage to the economy, and to call the shots on what a country does next in terms of its own survival. Mother Nature is not some passive hunk of earth to be dynamited for resources and left to repair itself for the next round. The Katrina disaster revealed that Mother Earth has enough clout to influence a national election and for that reason alone, even the most ecologically heathen of politicians who cannot imagine that global warming is anything but hype should yield to the fear of losing votes. Let’s face it: Mother Nature has politically come of age. We are only at the beginning of this Gulf oil crisis — just the beginning. If the idiots who suggested that the underwater leak be nuked in order to seal it actually get their way, the crisis will catapult to a mega-disaster and who knows how long it will take to recover from a nuked oil spill. It is all too apparent that the time has come for environmentalists to be recognized as power brokers on this planet, spokespeople for the force and voice of nature. The days of treating environmentalists as if they were “liberals” or supporters of Al Gore or people who lacked the scientific wherewithal to know what they are talking about is over. That hype is pure greed talking. A well-educated environmental scientist is exactly that – a scientist. Environmentalists (not on the pay roll of any oil company or any special interests groups) need to sit at Global Summits and at meetings at which major environmental policies are formed that affect the quality of life locally, nationally, and globally. The argument of financial impracticability no longer stands as valid given the Gulf oil crisis. Nothing is more financially impracticable than a disaster that could have and in fact, should have, been prevented. The argument that environmentalists are imagining the potential harm of off shore drilling or, say, global warming — that, too, is off that table. The offshore drilling catastrophe has now happened, suggesting that the warnings of environmentalists are not laden with emotional hysteria. They are the result of research and a bit of wisdom. With any luck, we might be able to prevent a global warming catastrophe. And if any politicians can’t handle warming up to Mother Nature as a type of “living” force worth protecting, then they should simply tell themselves that becoming an environmentalist is likely to improve their chances of getting re-elected these days. That should make even the most hard-core anti-environmentalist among them a treehugger.

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PayPal Founder Musk Tests Rocket NASA Wants to Haul Space Cargo

June 3, 2010

By Chris Dolmetsch June 3 (Bloomberg) — Elon Musk changed the way people shop on the Internet when he helped start the online-payment service PayPal. Tomorrow, he will try to take a step toward changing the way NASA carries supplies and people into space. Musk’s Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is scheduled to launch its Falcon 9 on an initial test flight from Cape Canaveral, Florida, during a four- hour window that begins at 11 a.m. The company plans to use the rocket to carry into Earth orbit its Dragon spacecraft, which is intended to take cargo to the International Space Station after the space shuttles are retired and may later ferry astronauts. “If it is successful, it is an important initial step toward the creation of a new kind of industry,” said John Logsdon , founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington. SpaceX’s vessels are part of President Barack Obama ’s new strategy for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which calls for the agency to develop systems capable of taking humans to Mars while helping entrepreneurs build vessels to carry astronauts to the space station. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told a Senate panel last month that he expects SpaceX to be able to fly its first manned mission in 2015. Musk said the company may be able to take astronauts to the station as early as 2013 if it receives a contract this year. Obama’s plan scrapped Constellation, the program that would send U.S. astronauts to the moon as a precursor to missions to Mars. The shift drew criticism from space travelers such as Neil Armstrong , the first person to walk on the moon, and lawmakers from states with NASA operations. Musk Companies The South Africa-born Musk, 38, founded closely held SpaceX in 2002 after selling other companies that he helped start — directory provider Zip2 Corp., sold to Compaq Computer Corp. for $300 million in 1999, and PayPal, bought by EBay Inc. for $1.2 billion in 2002. Musk is also chief executive officer of Tesla Motors Inc., an electric-car maker planning to raise $100 million in an initial share sale. Musk helped inspire the film version of Tony Stark, the billionaire in the “Iron Man” movies, director Jon Favreau wrote in Time magazine in April. Musk plays a cameo in “Iron Man 2,” and parts of the film were shot at SpaceX headquarters. Falcon’s Competition The 180-foot-tall (55-meter) Falcon 9 is intended to compete with the Delta IV and Atlas V from United Launch Alliance, a Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. joint venture, and Orbital Science Corp.’s Taurus II, set for its first flight next year. The Atlas and Delta rockets have an advantage over the Falcon 9 in the race to become the next vehicle to take astronauts to the space station because they have a track record of successful launches, Logsdon said. The shuttles and European vessels have carried cargo and people to the station since construction began in 1998. The shuttle program is scheduled to shut down this year, and NASA signed a $335 million contract extension with the Russian Federal Space Agency in April to buy transport for U.S. astronauts to the outpost through 2014. In 2008, NASA awarded contracts valued at as much as $3.5 billion through 2016 to SpaceX and Orbital to deliver cargo to the outpost. On Feb. 1, the day Obama announced his new strategy, NASA said it was giving $50 million to a group of companies to develop concepts for a station ferry, including United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin LLC, founded by Jeff Bezos , chairman and CEO of Amazon.com Inc . NASA expects as much as 70 percent of its cargo delivery to the station to be handled by Orbital and SpaceX, with the rest delivered by Japanese and European ships. SpaceX’s 2008 contract calls for at least 12 flights, with an option for more missions. SpaceX launched Falcon 1 in September 2008 after three failed attempts, and Musk said there is likely to be an anomaly that will postpone tomorrow’s test. “There’s a very good chance of something delaying the launch that we just don’t know right now,” Musk, the company’s chief executive, said in a May 26 interview. “That’s just the nature of the beast.” To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in New York at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net .

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PayPal Founder Musk Tests Rocket NASA Wants to Haul Space Cargo

June 3, 2010

By Chris Dolmetsch June 3 (Bloomberg) — Elon Musk changed the way people shop on the Internet when he helped start the online-payment service PayPal. Tomorrow, he will try to take a step toward changing the way NASA carries supplies and people into space. Musk’s Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is scheduled to launch its Falcon 9 on an initial test flight from Cape Canaveral, Florida, during a four- hour window that begins at 11 a.m. The company plans to use the rocket to carry into Earth orbit its Dragon spacecraft, which is intended to take cargo to the International Space Station after the space shuttles are retired and may later ferry astronauts. “If it is successful, it is an important initial step toward the creation of a new kind of industry,” said John Logsdon , founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington. SpaceX’s vessels are part of President Barack Obama ’s new strategy for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which calls for the agency to develop systems capable of taking humans to Mars while helping entrepreneurs build vessels to carry astronauts to the space station. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told a Senate panel last month that he expects SpaceX to be able to fly its first manned mission in 2015. Musk said the company may be able to take astronauts to the station as early as 2013 if it receives a contract this year. Obama’s plan scrapped Constellation, the program that would send U.S. astronauts to the moon as a precursor to missions to Mars. The shift drew criticism from space travelers such as Neil Armstrong , the first person to walk on the moon, and lawmakers from states with NASA operations. Musk Companies The South Africa-born Musk, 38, founded closely held SpaceX in 2002 after selling other companies that he helped start — directory provider Zip2 Corp., sold to Compaq Computer Corp. for $300 million in 1999, and PayPal, bought by EBay Inc. for $1.2 billion in 2002. Musk is also chief executive officer of Tesla Motors Inc., an electric-car maker planning to raise $100 million in an initial share sale. Musk helped inspire the film version of Tony Stark, the billionaire in the “Iron Man” movies, director Jon Favreau wrote in Time magazine in April. Musk plays a cameo in “Iron Man 2,” and parts of the film were shot at SpaceX headquarters. Falcon’s Competition The 180-foot-tall (55-meter) Falcon 9 is intended to compete with the Delta IV and Atlas V from United Launch Alliance, a Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. joint venture, and Orbital Science Corp.’s Taurus II, set for its first flight next year. The Atlas and Delta rockets have an advantage over the Falcon 9 in the race to become the next vehicle to take astronauts to the space station because they have a track record of successful launches, Logsdon said. The shuttles and European vessels have carried cargo and people to the station since construction began in 1998. The shuttle program is scheduled to shut down this year, and NASA signed a $335 million contract extension with the Russian Federal Space Agency in April to buy transport for U.S. astronauts to the outpost through 2014. In 2008, NASA awarded contracts valued at as much as $3.5 billion through 2016 to SpaceX and Orbital to deliver cargo to the outpost. On Feb. 1, the day Obama announced his new strategy, NASA said it was giving $50 million to a group of companies to develop concepts for a station ferry, including United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin LLC, founded by Jeff Bezos , chairman and CEO of Amazon.com Inc . NASA expects as much as 70 percent of its cargo delivery to the station to be handled by Orbital and SpaceX, with the rest delivered by Japanese and European ships. SpaceX’s 2008 contract calls for at least 12 flights, with an option for more missions. SpaceX launched Falcon 1 in September 2008 after three failed attempts, and Musk said there is likely to be an anomaly that will postpone tomorrow’s test. “There’s a very good chance of something delaying the launch that we just don’t know right now,” Musk, the company’s chief executive, said in a May 26 interview. “That’s just the nature of the beast.” To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in New York at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net .

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Obama Says Oil Company Tax Breaks Must Be Rolled Back in Wake of BP Spill

June 2, 2010

By Kate Andersen Brower June 2 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said the Gulf of Mexico oil spill should send an urgent signal to Congress to complete work on energy legislation, including rolling back “billions of dollars in tax breaks” for oil companies and fostering investments in alternatives to fossil fuels. “The catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf right now may prove to be the result of human error — or corporations taking dangerous short cuts that compromise safety,” Obama said in a speech prepared for delivery in Pittsburgh today. “But we have to acknowledge that there are inherent risks to drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth.” The spill began after an April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, which London-based BP Plc leases from Switzerland’s Transocean Ltd. The blast killed 11 and triggered leaks that, according to a government panel, spew an estimated 12,000 barrels to 19,000 barrels of oil a day into the ocean. In his prepared remarks, Obama called for an ‘unprecedented effort” to develop clean energy and renewed his call for Congress to approve legislation imposing a cap and trade system that would place a ceiling on carbon emissions and let companies swap permits to release greenhouse gases. “The only way the transition to clean energy will succeed is if the private sector is fully invested in this future — if capital comes off the sidelines and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs is unleashed,” he said in the speech excerpts released by the White House. “And the only way to do that is by finally putting a price on carbon pollution.” Global Warming Legislation that would put a price on carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming has stalled in the Senate. A climate-change bill introduced last month by Senator John Kerry , a Massachusetts Democrat, lacks the bipartisan support it would need to pass. The House of Representatives approved legislation to limit greenhouse-gas pollution last year. In his prepared remarks at Carnegie Mellon University , Obama signaled he is assigning energy legislation a higher priority than immigration overhaul. The president said he may lack the votes in the Senate to pass an energy bill, and then added: “But I intend to find them in the coming months.” Obama hasn’t set such a firm timeline for Congress to act on immigration legislation. Obama also criticized Republicans for opposing his efforts to increase employment, improve health care and regulate Wall Street. Government’s Role Republicans believe government has “little or no role to play” in solving the nation’s economic problems, he said. The Republican agenda “basically offers two answers to every problem we face: more tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer rules for corporations.” Those policies were proven failures over the past decade, Obama said. “Now we have a choice as a nation. We can return to the failed economic policies of the past, or we can keep building a stronger future,” he said. “We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward. I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward.” To contact the reporter on this story: Kate Andersen Brower in Pittsburgh at Kandersen7@bloomberg.net

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Gulf Oil Spill: Best Chance To Stop Leak Won’t Be Ready Until August

May 31, 2010

NEW ORLEANS — The best hope for stopping the flow of oil from the blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico has been compared to hitting a target the size of a dinner plate with a drill more than two miles into the earth, and is anything but a sure bet on the first attempt. Bid after bid has failed to stanch what has already become the nation’s worst-ever spill, and BP PLC is readying another attempt as early as Wednesday, this one a cut-and-cap process to put a lid on the leaking wellhead so oil can be siphoned to the surface. But the best-case scenario of sealing the leak is two relief wells being drilled diagonally into the gushing well – tricky business that won’t be ready until August. “The probability of them hitting it on the very first shot is virtually nil,” said David Rensink, incoming president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, who spent most of his 39 years in the oil industry in offshore exploration. “If they get it on the first three or four shots they’d be very lucky.” For the bid to succeed, the bore hole must precisely intersect the damaged well. If it misses, BP will have to back up its drill, plug the hole it just created, and try again. The trial-and-error process could take weeks, but it will eventually work, scientists and BP said. Then engineers will then pump mud and cement through pipes to ultimately seal the well. As the drilling reaches deeper into the earth, the process is slowed by building pressure and the increasing distance that well casings must travel before they can be set in place. Still, the three months it could take to finish the relief wells – the first of which started May 2 – is quicker than a typical deep well, which can take four months or longer, said Tad Patzek, chair of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas-Austin. BP already has a good picture of the different layers of sand and rock its drill bits will meet because of the work it did on the blown-out well. On the slim chance the relief well doesn’t work, scientists weren’t sure exactly how much – or how long – the oil would flow. The gusher would continue until the well bore hole collapsed or pressure in the reservoir dropped to a point where oil was no longer pushed to the surface, Patzek said. “I don’t admit the possibility of it not working,” he said. A third well could be drilled if the first two fail. “We don’t know how much oil is down there, and hopefully we’ll never know when the relief wells work,” BP spokesman John Curry said. The company was starting to collect and analyze data on how much oil might be in the reservoir when the rig exploded April 20, he said. BP’s uncertainty statement is reasonable, given they only had drilled one well, according to Doug Rader, an ocean scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund. Two relief wells stopped the world’s worst peacetime spill, from a Mexican rig called Ixtoc 1 that dumped 140 million gallons off the Yucatan Peninsula. That plug took nearly 10 months beginning in the summer of 1979. Drilling technology has vastly improved since then, however. So far, the Gulf oil spill has leaked between 19.7 million and 43 million gallons, according to government estimates. In the meantime, BP is turning to another risky procedure federal officials acknowledge will likely, at least temporarily, cause 20 percent more oil – at least 100,000 gallons a day – to add to the gusher. Using robot submarines, BP plans to cut away the riser pipe this week and place a cap-like containment valve over the blowout preventer. The company hopes it will capture the majority of the oil, sending it to the surface. “If you’ve got to cut that riser, that’s risky. You could take a bad situation and make it worse,” said Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University professor of environmental sciences. The latest attempt to capture the well comes after BP failed to plug the leak Saturday with its top kill, which shot mud and pieces of rubber into the well but couldn’t beat back the pressure of the oil. The location of the spill couldn’t be worse. To the south lies an essential spawning ground for imperiled Atlantic bluefin tuna and sperm whales. To the east and west, coral reefs and the coastal fisheries of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. And to the north, Louisiana’s coastal marshes. More than 125 miles of Louisiana coastline already have been hit with oil. “It’s just killing us by degrees,” said Tulane University ecologist Tom Sherry. It’s an area that historically has been something of a superhighway for hurricanes, too. If a major storm rolls in, the relief well operations would have to be suspended and then re-started, adding more time to the process. Plugging the Ixtoc was also hampered by hurricane season, which begins Tuesday and is predicted to be very active. Three of the worst storms ever to hit the Gulf coast – Betsy in 1965, Camille in 1969 and Katrina in 2005 – all passed over the leak site. On the Gulf coast beaches, tropical weather was far from some tourists’ minds. On Biloxi beach, Paul Dawa and his friend Ezekial Momgeri sipped Coronas after a night gambling at the Hard Rock Casino. Both men, originally from Kenya, drove from Memphis, Tenn., and were chased off the beach by a storm, not oil. “We talked about it and we decided to come down and see for ourselves” whether there was oil, Momgeri said. “There’s no oil here.” Though some tar balls have been found on Mississippi and Alabama barrier islands, oil from the spill has not significantly fouled the shores. Still, the perception that it has soiled white sands and fishing areas threatens to cripple the tourist economy, said Linda Hornsby, executive director of the Mississippi Hotel and Lodging Association “It’s not here. It may never be here. It’s costing a lot of money to counter that perception,” Hornsby said. “First it was cancelations, but that evolved to a decrease in calls and there’s no way to measure that.” Yet there was fear the oil would eventually hit the other Gulf coast states. Hentzel Yucles, of Gulfport, Miss., hung out on the beach with his wife and sons. “Katrina was bad. I know this is a different type of situation, but it’s going to affect everybody,” he said. ___ Associated Press writers Kevin McGill, Ben Nuckols and Greg Bluestein in Covington, La., and Holbrook Mohr in Biloxi, Miss., contributed to this report.

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Gulf Fisherman On Oil Spill: ‘Our Way Of Life Is Over. It’s The End, The Apocalypse’

May 31, 2010

NEW ORLEANS — The best hope for stopping the flow of oil from the blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico has been compared to hitting a target the size of a dinner plate with a drill more than two miles into the earth, and is anything but a sure bet on the first attempt. Bid after bid has failed to stanch what has already become the nation’s worst-ever spill, and BP PLC is readying another patchwork attempt as early as Wednesday, this one a cut-and-cap process to put a lid on the leaking wellhead so oil can be siphoned to the surface. But the best-case scenario of sealing the leak is two relief wells being drilled diagonally into the gushing well – tricky business that won’t be ready until August. “The probability of them hitting it on the very first shot is virtually nil,” said David Rensink, incoming president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, who spent most of his 39 years in the oil industry in offshore exploration. “If they get it on the first three or four shots they’d be very lucky.” The relief well drilling and temporary fixes were being watched closely by President Barack Obama, who planned to meet for the first time Tuesday with the co-chairmen of an independent commission investigating the spill. A senior administration official said the meeting will take place at the White House. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting had not been formally announced. For the relief well to succeed, the bore hole must precisely intersect the damaged well. If it misses, BP will have to back up its drill, plug the hole it just created, and try again. The trial-and-error process could take weeks, but it will eventually work, scientists and BP said. Then engineers will then pump mud and cement through pipes to ultimately seal the well. As the drilling reaches deeper into the earth, the process is slowed by building pressure and the increasing distance that well casings must travel before they can be set in place. Still, the three months it could take to finish the relief wells – the first of which started May 2 – is quicker than a typical deep well, which can take four months or longer, said Tad Patzek, chair of the Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department at the University of Texas-Austin. BP already has a good picture of the different layers of sand and rock its drill bits will meet because of the work it did on the blown-out well. On the slim chance the relief well doesn’t work, scientists weren’t sure exactly how much – or how long – the oil would flow. The gusher would continue until the well bore hole collapsed or pressure in the reservoir dropped to a point where oil was no longer pushed to the surface, Patzek said. “I don’t admit the possibility of it not working,” he said. A third well could be drilled if the first two fail. “We don’t know how much oil is down there, and hopefully we’ll never know when the relief wells work,” BP spokesman John Curry said. The company was starting to collect and analyze data on how much oil might be in the reservoir when the rig exploded April 20, he said. BP’s uncertainty statement is reasonable, given they only had drilled one well, according to Doug Rader, an ocean scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund. Two relief wells stopped the world’s worst peacetime spill, from a Mexican rig called Ixtoc 1 that dumped 140 million gallons off the Yucatan Peninsula. That plug took nearly 10 months beginning in the summer of 1979. Drilling technology has vastly improved since then, however. So far, the Gulf oil spill has leaked between 19.7 million and 43 million gallons, according to government estimates. In the meantime, BP is turning to another risky procedure federal officials acknowledge will likely, at least temporarily, cause 20 percent more oil – at least 100,000 gallons a day – to add to the gusher. Using robot submarines, BP plans to cut away the riser pipe this week and place a cap-like containment valve over the blowout preventer. On Monday, live video feeds showed robot submarines moving equipment around and using a circular saw-like device to cut small pipes at the bottom of the Gulf. The crews will eventually cut the leaking riser and place the cap on top of it, the company hopes it will capture the majority of the oil, sending it to the surface. “If you’ve got to cut that riser, that’s risky. You could take a bad situation and make it worse,” said Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University professor of environmental sciences. BP failed to plug the leak Saturday with its top kill, which shot mud and pieces of rubber into the well but couldn’t beat back the pressure of the oil. Meanwhile, the location of the spill couldn’t be worse. To the south lies an essential spawning ground for imperiled Atlantic bluefin tuna and sperm whales. To the east and west, coral reefs and the coastal fisheries of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. And to the north, Louisiana’s coastal marshes. More than 125 miles of Louisiana coastline already have been hit with oil. “It’s just killing us by degrees,” said Tulane University ecologist Tom Sherry. It’s an area that historically has been something of a superhighway for hurricanes, too. If a major storm rolls in, the relief well operations would have to be suspended and then re-started, adding more time to the process. Plugging the Ixtoc was also hampered by hurricane season, which begins Tuesday and is predicted to be very active. Three of the worst storms ever to hit the Gulf coast – Betsy in 1965, Camille in 1969 and Katrina in 2005 – all passed over the leak site. On the Gulf coast beaches, tropical weather was far from some tourists’ minds. On Biloxi beach, Paul Dawa and his friend Ezekial Momgeri sipped Coronas after a night gambling at the Hard Rock Casino. Both men, originally from Kenya, drove from Memphis, Tenn., and were chased off the beach by a storm, not oil. “We talked about it and we decided to come down and see for ourselves” whether there was oil, Momgeri said. “There’s no oil here.” Though some tar balls have been found on Mississippi and Alabama barrier islands, oil from the spill has not significantly fouled the shores. Still, the perception that it has soiled white sands and fishing areas threatens to cripple the tourist economy, said Linda Hornsby, executive director of the Mississippi Hotel and Lodging Association “It’s not here. It may never be here. It’s costing a lot of money to counter that perception,” Hornsby said. “First it was cancelations, but that evolved to a decrease in calls and there’s no way to measure that.” Yet there was fear the oil would eventually hit the other Gulf coast states. Hentzel Yucles, of Gulfport, Miss., hung out on the beach with his wife and sons. “Katrina was bad. I know this is a different type of situation, but it’s going to affect everybody,” he said. Attorney General Eric Holder plans to visit the Gulf Coast on Tuesday and meet with state attorneys general. Several senators have asked the Justice Department to determine whether any laws were broken in the spill. ___ Associated Press writers Kevin McGill, Ben Nuckols and Greg Bluestein in Covington, La., Holbrook Mohr in Biloxi, Miss., and Darlene Superville at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., contributed to this report.

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theGrio: Tainted Meat Exposes US Consumers to HIV-like Virus

May 27, 2010

This post originally appeared at theGrio.com By Jennifer H. Cunningham Primate parts smuggled inside cases of fish. Suitcases stuffed with dried duiker antelope that’s later sold door to door. Smoked cane rat strapped under a smuggler’s clothes. These are the hallmarks of the unregulated, underground bushmeat trade in America. The high demand for this meat among certain African communities is jeopardizing public health here, destroying the lives of those who depend on the forest to survive, and endangering both the environment and an already vulnerable species, scientists and wildlife advocates say. “There is no doubt that thousands of pounds of bushmeat is coming into the country every month,” said Dr. Heather E. Eves, former director of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force . Bushmeat, or meat from wild animals such as elephant, bat or chimpanzee, is a prized foodstuff in some African cultures — eaten on holidays and celebrations and believed to have medicinal benefits — according to according to Dr. Richard Ruggiero, branch chief of Near East, South Asia and Africa for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Division of International Conservation. Some also believe consuming bushmeat will make them stronger, or even increase sexual prowess. Dr. Eves — now the visiting assistant professor at Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Natural Resources Program and professorial lecturer at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies — said bushmeat consumption is culturally significant, like the way turkey is for Americans on Thanksgiving. Dr. Ruggiero likened it to his family, who are from the Mediterranean, eating seafood for dinner on Christmas Eve. “You’re not doing it intending to be evil,” Dr. Ruggiero said. “You’re doing it because it’s your tradition. It’s understandable, and in some cases justifiable, but that doesn’t make it any better for the earth.” Bushmeat also serves as both a source of income and protein for those who harvest it, Dr. Eves said. Some types of bushmeat can be as expensive as filet mignon. “It’s a link to their culture,” Dr. Eves said. “That’s a very important piece. It can’t be replaced by any other types of food here.” But scientists believe bushmeat can harbor diseases that can spread from animal to human. The Centers for Disease Control, for example, says humans can contract a host of diseases from primates, including the Ebola virus, monkeypox, tuberculosis and yellow fever. Last month, the CDC and the Wildlife Conservation Society released preliminary test results that found primate bushmeat seized in New York City contained two strains of the simian foamy virus — a virus related to HIV — that can infect people. The related Simian Immunodeficiency Virus or SIV, has been found in bushmeat tested outside the country, and some believe that virus is responsible for the first HIV cases , according to the Wall Street Journal. “The movement and mixing of humans, wildlife, and domestic animals as part of the illegal global wildlife trade encourages transmission of disease and emergence of novel pathogens,” Dr. William Karesh, of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Global Health Program, said in a statement. Nonetheless, the bushmeat trade is thriving in various U.S. locales, including Atlanta, Detroit, Washington, D.C. and New York. New Jersey is a particular hotspot for the trade, Dr. Eves said. “The availability of bushmeat in the U.S. is surprising,” she said. With expanded infrastructure into previously impenetrable forests, the process of transporting wild animals from the jungle to the dinner table takes only a few days. The hunter then prepares the meat for shipment, usually by charring off its fur, removing its organs and placing on a frame over an open fire to dry and smoke for a few days, Dr. Eves said. However, some meat is simply shipped raw. Dr. Eves recalled an airport in Central Africa where workers wrapped all suitcases in plastic after passengers complained their bags were getting blood on them. One problem in stemming the tons of bushmeat arriving in the U.S. every year is there aren’t enough inspectors to detect it. Bob Onda, supervisory inspector for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Office of Law Enforcement, port of New York, is the first line of defense the U.S. has in keeping bushmeat out of the country. He and his staff of 12 investigators simply can’t inspect every parcel or person that arrives in New York. He said his team already inspects roughly 35,000 to 40,000 commercial shipments each year. Onda said the number of bushmeat seizures in the port of New York had declined, but said the bushmeat could be being smuggled in other ways, like in smaller shipments or to other cities. When caught, Onda said smugglers are “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Late last year, a New York Federal Court sentenced Mamie Manneh, a Liberian woman from Staten Island, to a three years probation for smuggling and selling smoked bushmeat, including primate parts. Next month, the Senate is expected to introduce the Global Conservation Act , which would create an international strategy to combat natural resource depletion worldwide, including the illegal bushmeat trade. Before globalized trade stretched to previously remote areas in Africa, those who lived there hunted bushmeat to eat and sell locally. But worldwide demand has created an insatiable and unsustainable need for bushmeat, leaving swathes of forest, or “bush,” bereft of wildlife and rendering many Africans unable to continue living a traditional lifestyle, Ruggiero said. Once the animals are gone, villagers who relied on bushmeat to survive are left virtually destitute and unable to maintain their way of life for themselves or for future generations. For example, some members of the Pygmy and Bantu tribes have been forced to work for the very logging camps that created the roads that brought the bushmeat hunters to their doorsteps, Ruggiero said. “They go down with the forest and the wildlife,” Ruggiero said. The bushmeat trade “is not just a biodiversity issue, it’s a human right’s issue.” He called on those in the U.S. to stop eating bushmeat, not only because of public health and environmental concerns, but because the trade destroying the lives of those who rely on the bush. “Understand that you are contributing to the compromise, death and destruction of the forest and the people who live in it,” he said. Related articles by Zemanta Ancient origin for monkey version of HIV (nature.com) Rare animals are being ‘eaten to extinction’ (telegraph.co.uk)

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New York City Temperatures May Reach 90 This Week as Heat Pours Into East

May 24, 2010

By Brian K. Sullivan May 24 (Bloomberg) — New York City temperatures may reach 90 degrees the day after tomorrow as a heat wave setting records across the U.S. moves into the East Coast, according to the National Weather Service. If the city reaches 90 Fahrenheit (32 Celsius), it will be the first time since April 7, when readings hit 92 in Central Park, said Richard Castro, a weather service meteorologist in Upton, New York . The normal high temperature for New York for this time of year is about 74, he said. “It will be close, it is possible at this point we could fall a degree either side of 90,” Castro said by telephone. “We’re quite a bit above normal for this time of year.” Heat has settled over the U.S. Midwest, with St. Louis reaching a record 92 degrees yesterday and an excessive heat warning posted today in Minneapolis and St. Paul, where temperatures are expected to rise into the mid-90s with high humidity. Yesterday’s cooling degree days value in Minneapolis was 16, 14 higher than normal, according to the weather service. St. Louis was 12 above normal at 17; Cedar Rapids, Iowa was 11 above normal at 14; and Chicago was 9 above its usual mark for the day at 11, according to the weather service. Cooling Degree Days Cooling degree days value is calculated by subtracting the average daily temperature from a base of 65 degrees, and is designed to show energy demand, according to the National Weather Service. The higher the value, the warmer the weather, and thus more energy is probably consumed to cool homes and businesses. “Power grids across the Midwest and Northeast will see a surge in demand as hot conditions warrant an increased cooling demand across the regions this week as people increase their air conditioning usage,” said Travis Hartman , energy manager at MDA EarthSat Weather in Rockville, Maryland. “Cooling degree days are going to be high enough where it will be impactful.” Philadelphia temperatures are forecast to hit 90 the day after tomorrow, with Baltimore reaching 89 and Washington 87. Boston may reach 86 tomorrow, according to the weather service. Cooler air is forecast to arrive as the week ends, Castro said. The drop probably won’t be enough to keep New York from seeing its third month in a row of above-normal temperatures, Castro said. March was 5.7 degrees on average above normal, April was the warmest on record at 5.4 degrees above normal and so far May is averaging 1.8 degrees above normal, he said. To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net .

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Martin Luz: Fealty to Folly: Oil Is Dead! Long Live Oil!

May 14, 2010

Memo to oil apologists: When VHS supplanted BetaMax nobody shed a tear. When word processing software replaced typewriters , nobody shrieked about a socialist revolution in the steno pool. And when the jet engine replaced the propeller, there were no protests on the Mall in Washington about a vast supersonic conspiracy. Face it. Technology changes. And the petroleum-based economy is dead. It’s built on antiquated technology that’s killing us and our planet. Now quit your whinging, get over it, and move on. A Drop In the Gulf Since the dawn of the industrial age, human beings have pumped about 46 TRILLION gallons of oil from under the ground ( 1.1 trillion barrels ). Where did it all go? We’ve burned it. We turned it into fertilizers. We turned it into plastics. Among other things. But wait. Where did all those petrochemical “products” go after they were burned, and dispersed, and tossed into trash bins? All that petro-refuse sure as hell didn’t just find it’s way back down the oil well from whence it came. Nope. We’re wallowing in it… in the air, ground, and water. Is it really so hard to picture? Where else do you imagine 46 trillion gallons of oil could possibly go after we’re done with it? And what about the next 46 trillion gallons? And the next 46 trillion after that? In fact, in 2008, the chief of Saudi Arabia’s state run oil company ARAMCO scoffed at peak oil theorist and claimed that there was easily another 500 trillion gallons of conventional and unconventional oil yet to be pumped out, processed, used up and discarded. Oh… Well hooray then. But where will all that oil go? The great Pacific Garbage Patch – a toxic soup of plastic particles – is already estimated to cover an area somewhere between the size of Texas and the size of the entire Continental U.S. ( explanation here ; nauseating video here ). And recently another great garbage patch was discovered, stretching from Bermuda half way across the North Atlantic to the Azors ( icky pictures here ). At the mouth of the Mississippi River, in the Gulf of Mexico, there’s a hypoxic ” dead zone ” the size the state of New Jersey, caused in large part by a run off of petrochemical-based fertilizers. And the carbon toll on the atmosphere is well known… even if denialists still protest. What will planet Earth look like after we’ve processed and discarded 450 trillion more gallons of oil – ten times what we’ve already used and discarded ? Put it this way: the spill in the Gulf will look like a drop in the bucket. The oil economy is like a zombie from the movie Night of the Living Dead… an economic corpse that’s roaming the land and threatening to eat us alive. Fealty to Folly Oil has served its purpose. It was great while it lasted, and it got us to a point where we have the industrial and technological wherewithal to chart a new course. Thanks oil, we say a prayer for the ghosts of the dinosaurs whose flesh and bones we have burned. But we’re no longer primitives who need to animal fat to light our evening meditations, or chase away evil spirits. Hospitals no longer use leeches, or bloodletting, or even mercury thermometers for that matter. Audio cassettes long ago replaced vinyl, and were themselves replaced by CDs, which are now being replaced by MP3 files. Sure it sucked to have to pay good money to replace music I already owned. But some of it I didn’t replace, which turned out OK really. I replaced the timeless stuff that I really wanted, and the other stuff, truth be told, I don’t miss it. And if I do get a nostalgic hankering, for a buck I can download that one song I really miss, revel in its dated novelty, and then re-enter the 21st Century. Facts are facts, and the fact is we can’t afford the socialized environmental cost of having another 450 trillion gallons of oil pumped out of the ground, processed, used up and then strewn all about the place – the Earth isn’t that big. Look at the mess we’ve already made with just the 46 trillion gallons we’ve used so far. (And just because there’s enough wildlife left to fill up several time slots of cable programming on NatGeo, that in no way means that the planet is healthy. Not by a long shot.) Those who are doubling down on the oil economy are like addicts who swear that this last bender and this last bet at the roulette table will cure all that ails us. It’s sheer folly. But they’re too busy living in the past to see it. And yes, it will take Herculean effort, and lots of money to rejigger our economic infrastructure to function on something other than oil. (Let’s not even start on coal.) But what’s the option? Put on your Walkman headset and swing your Hoola-Hoop while you ask your Magic 8 Ball how to make all the problems with the oil economy magically disappear?

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Aron Cramer: Bankers You Can Believe In

May 8, 2010

With their brethren parading to Capitol Hill to explain themselves and their industry to skeptical lawmakers and an angry public, three bankers at this week’s CERES Conference in Boston may revive faith in a profession that is sorely in need of respect. I had the privilege of chairing a plenary discussion of innovative financial solutions that, with a little luck, may create a path to low-carbon prosperity. These days, seeing the word “innovation” paired with “financial products” is a good way to clear the room (or spur a call to the Feds). But the three very different bankers on my panel are, in fact, pioneering new ways to invest in forest preservation, invent disruptive technologies needed for a clean energy system, and create a price on carbon. Despite his elegant banker’s suit, Abyd Karmali is somewhat of an accidental financier. After two decades consulting for private firms and the United Nations, Karmali was recruited two years ago (interesting timing) to head Bank of America’s carbon markets division. His vision is to spread carbon pricing throughout BofA’s products. As he points out, carbon trading will only do so much if we don’t find ways to incorporate coverage of environmental improvements into all financial services. He proposes, for example, that banks use mortgages not only to help people pay off their houses, but also to encourage clean-energy investments that would otherwise require capital beyond the reach of most homeowners. If Karmali is aiming to green today’s economy, Macquarie Capital’s Bill Green is trying to shape tomorrow’s. His impatience with doom-and-gloom scenarios is exactly what you would expect from a Silicon Valley veteran who previously led investments in the solar power company Bright Source and Shai Agassi’s electric car system for the venture capital powerhouse VantagePoint. Green’s contrarian nature is best revealed by the kind words he had for Lehman Brothers, which he credited with providing financing for tax-equity deals that stoked clean-technology investments before the financial crisis hit in 2008. He sees this week’s investment by Google in two North Dakota wind farms as evidence that Lehman’s strategy was sound, and is poised to be revived. But the most theatrical member of this trio was Australian Dorjee Sun, hailed by Time magazine as a “Hero of the Earth” in 2009. Sun has built a business, Carbon Conservation, by arranging financing to avoid deforestation across Asia. His efforts are credited with saving a sizeable amount of forest, which he’s done by buttonholing forestry executives, smallholders in Borneo, and the president of Mongolia. Sun’s vision – and humor – makes a potent combination. These three clearly showed that innovation in the financial services sector is not always a dirty word. In fact, focused properly, it’s exactly what we need if we are going to marry healthy financial returns with a healthy planet. With due respect to Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs may not be doing “God’s work,” but these three bankers can plausibly make that claim.

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Marc Stoiber: R.O.G.

April 23, 2010

Now that Earth Day’s done, let’s talk about how we can profit from the planet. Perhaps this sentiment isn’t politically correct at a time when, well, we’ve profited from the planet to the brink of self-extinction. But if we ever want to make corporate actions a powerful, self-reinforcing agent for driving sustainable change, we may just need to reframe the discussion. In other words, we need to start talking about R.O.G, or return on green. And explore how we can make good stewardship of the environment a clearly profitable venture. Businesses like Seventh Generation , Wal-Mart , GE , Toyota and Patagonia have been doing well by doing good for years. But somehow, the ‘doing well’ message continues to get lost along the way. As a consequence, there are still legions of CEO’s who regard sustainability as an interesting byline. They think corporate social responsibility is important from a marketing perspective, but needs to be kept away from the serious business of making money. In short, they don’t see the R.O.G. So how to reframe the discussion? Perhaps the following three points would provide good building blocks. Green = efficiency. Efficiency = immediate savings. Use less energy to make widget, you save money. Waste less materials to make widget, you save money. This self-evident truth has been coined eco-efficiency, and it’s the new byword of the corporate sustainability movement. In fact, IBM just hosted the Global Eco-Efficiency Jam , a two-day online event where corporate leaders participated in discussions focused solely on driving efficiency. Case studies for eco-efficiency abound: Interface saved over $200 million from 1996 to 2002 through sustainability efforts; Dupont saved over $400 million in 2000 due to resource and productivity improvement; in five years SC Johnson increased production 50%, cut waste 50%, and saved more than $125 million. They’re numbers that build a strong case for ROG. Especially in today’s economic climate. Triple the input cost, triple the green innovation. Innovation is closely linked to efficiency. As such, it plays a key role in attaining R.O.G. But how do you find the low-hanging fruit ripe for eco-efficient innovation? By finding the areas most vulnerable to price fluctuation. Areas like energy and raw materials. Pose this challenge to your organization: assume every energy source, every raw material, every input, suddenly triples in price. We know consumers won’t pay more. So how do we stay in business? The answer is aggressive innovation. Innovation that not only boosts efficiency and creates real, measurable payback, but helps differentiate your company. It may even get you press – helping reduce your marketing expense. If it is not about winning, why do we keep score? ‘What gets measured gets managed’ goes the old saw. You’re embarking on a voyage of eco-efficiency. You’re tripling the cost of your inputs. Now you have to measure your current, and steadily improving resource usage. But what happens when you not only measure that usage, but share the information with suppliers, line managers, business units? Even better, what happens when you hand out prizes to teams that make the numbers move the farthest in the right direction? What happens is competition, plain and simple. And nothing builds business like healthy competition. R.O.G. Bringing it all together R.O.G. is, in the end, about thinking inclusively. For too long, the concepts of economic return and ecological responsibility have been divorced. As a result, we thought you could have one or the other, but never both. In order to engage as large a segment of the corporate community in green innovation, we need to clarify that this is an ‘and’ issue, not an ‘or’. Not only is it possible to profit from green innovation, it’s essential. Marc Stoiber is VP Green Innovation at Maddock Douglas, a leading innovation agency based in Chicago. Stoiber works from Vancouver. Special thanks to Roy Johanson of Maddock Douglas for contributing to the article.

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Drillers Risk Deadly Blowouts to Tap Oil, Gas Reservoirs Deeper Undersea

April 23, 2010

By Joe Carroll, Jim Polson and Katarzyna Klimasinska April 23 (Bloomberg) — Energy companies delving miles beneath the seafloor for oil are risking pressure surges like the one this week that may have sparked the deadliest U.S. rig accident in 23 years. Explorers began work on 17 new Gulf of Mexico wells last week in waters deeper than 1,000 feet (305 meters), spurred in part by a tripling in crude prices in the past decade. The threat of pressure surges, or blowouts, that can smash steel equipment and create gushing columns of fire increases as drillers probe deeper, Neal Dingmann , an analyst at Wunderlich Securities, said. U.S. Coast Guard rescuers said hope was fading of finding alive any of the 11 workers missing since an April 20 explosion aboard Transocean Ltd. ’s Deepwater Horizon rig, which the company said may have been caused by a blowout in an 18,000-foot well. The $365 million vessel sank yesterday and left an oil sheen on the water large enough to cover one-fourth of Manhattan. “Offshore drilling has always been high risk, but when you talk about wells going to these kinds of depths, the risks go even higher,” Dingmann said in a telephone interview from Houston. “Once you go anywhere below 10,000 feet, all of a sudden the pressure and temperature become a lot more difficult to contend with.” If the 11 missing workers are declared dead, it would be the worst offshore oil-industry accident in U.S. waters since 1987, when a helicopter crashed into a Forest Oil Corp. platform, killing 14 people, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of data from the U.S. Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service . No Warning Some workers were killed by the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon and others were thrown overboard, according to a lawsuit filed by the family of missing roustabout Shane Roshto against BP and Transocean. Adrian Rose , who oversees Geneva-based Transocean’s quality, health, safety and environment unit, said yesterday that the disaster unfolded with little or no warning. Michael Kersey told reporters in Kenner, Louisiana, that his brother, Jonathan Kersey, was aboard the Deepwater Horizon when it erupted in flames. “He said it was the scariest thing he saw in his life,” Michael Kersey said. Jonathan Kersey, 33, was among those who escaped in a life boat, his brother said. The accident may spur calls for tougher oversight and increased regulation of the drilling industry, as well as raise legal risks for companies. Political Pressure President Barack Obama last month proposed expanding offshore drilling in some U.S. coastal areas. “This accident happened at exactly the wrong time,” Jud Bailey , a Houston-based analyst for Jefferies & Co., said in a telephone interview. “The offshore industry has a good safety record, but this is something environmentalists can grab onto and say, ‘See, this is why you shouldn’t drill.’” Senator Mary L. Landrieu , a Louisiana Democrat, urged the Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service, which has authority over oil and gas exploration in federal waters, to “conduct a swift and thorough investigation.” “It is critical that these agencies examine what went wrong and the environmental impact this incident has created,” Landrieu said in a statement. Cote de Mer The minerals agency requires energy producers to inspect wells at least every 30 days during exploration work, John Schiller , chief executive officer of Energy XXI (Bermuda) Ltd., said on a November conference call with investors. Energy XXI, along with partners that included Nexen Inc., spent $75 million to bring a June 2007 blowout at the Cote de Mer field in Louisiana under control. A surge of gas in the 22,261-foot well blew through a device known as a blowout preventer, burying the rig floor in six feet of sand, rock and seashells. No one was injured, the company said. Oilfield-equipment makers such as Ametek Inc. and FMC Technologies Inc. are working to develop hardware that can withstand pressures and temperatures in wells that can plunge more than 32,000 feet (9,754 meters) into the Earth’s crust. “The conditions keep getting worse as they go deeper,” said Brian Ainley, director of business development at Ametek’s Chandler Engineering unit in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Calculating Risks Some companies aren’t willing to risk the danger of a blowout. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s second-largest oil company, abandoned its Blackbeard well in the Gulf of Mexico in 2006 after the company’s engineers became alarmed over the pressure levels and temperatures almost seven miles beneath the seafloor, Dingmann said. McMoRan Exploration Co. obtained control over Blackbeard in 2007 as part of its $1.1 billion acquisition of offshore assets from Newfield Exploration Co., one of Exxon’s partners in the project. McMoRan of New Orleans extended the well almost 3,000 feet deeper than where Exxon left it. James “ Jim Bob ” Moffett, co-chairman of McMoRan, told investors on a January conference call that the risks of dealing with higher-pressure deposits may be worthwhile because those fields have more oil and gas packed into each square yard of rock. Transocean fell 8 cents to $90.29 yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. BP dropped 11.8 pence to 636.40 pence. To contact the reporters on this story: Joe Carroll in Chicago at Jcarroll8@bloomberg.net ; Jim Polson in New York at jpolson@bloomberg.net ; Katarzyna Klimasinska in Kenner, Louisiana, at kklimasinska@bloomberg.net .

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Icelandic Volcano Eruption Falls Short of Weather-Changing Pinatubo Blast

April 19, 2010

By Stuart Biggs and Jeremy van Loon April 19 (Bloomberg) — The volcanic ash spewing from Iceland that’s disrupting air travel across Europe is hundreds of times less than erupted from Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which altered the world’s climate in 1991. The impact of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano is likely to be “virtually non-existent” on global climate because the eruption is too small and gases are not penetrating the upper atmosphere, said Blair Trewin , a senior climatologist with the Australia’s National Climate Centre in Melbourne. “In its current form, we wouldn’t expect the eruption to have any significant global climate effects,” Trewin said today in a telephone interview. “In terms of how much material was being put up into the atmosphere, Pinatubo was several hundred times larger than this has been so far.” Major volcanic eruptions can lower the earth’s temperature for as long as three years by throwing sulfuric gases into the atmosphere that absorb the sun’s radiation, according to NASA . Mount Pinatubo disgorged about 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, causing global temperatures to drop by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) until 1993, according to the U.S. Geological Survey . The ice-covered Icelandic volcano erupted for the second time in four weeks on April 14, spewing ash across Europe’s airspace and causing cancellation of as many as 63,000 flights. The Pinatubo eruption, which killed as many as 800 people and left 100,000 homeless, had a greater impact on the environment because it lies close to the equator, Trewin said. Air flows in the upper atmosphere from the equator to the poles, meaning Pinatubo’s gases spread over the whole globe, he said. That wouldn’t be the case with Iceland because of its northern latitude, he said. ‘Much Smaller’ Iceland’s volcanic eruption is “much smaller” than Pinatubo, Michael Zemp, a glaciologist with the World Glacier Monitoring Service at the University of Zurich, said today in a telephone interview. Information from collegues in Iceland indicates “it’s a short-term thing” that is unlikely to have as profound effect as Pinatubo. Eyjafjallajökull is throwing gas, dust and other debris about 12,000 feet (3,650 meters) to 15,000 feet into the air, below the 30,000-feet threshold where ash could reduce temperatures, Elwynn Taylor, an agricultural meteorologist at Iowa State University in Ames, said in an interview last week. “Volcanic material will only have a longer term impact on the climate of it gets into the upper atmosphere above rain clouds, otherwise it just gets rained out in a few days,” Trewin said today. Around the world, 18 volcanoes are currently active including three in Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, one in Hawaii and one in Alaska, according to the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program . This year, 39 volcanoes have erupted, including Yasur on the island of Vanuatu, the institute’s Web site said. To contact the reporters on this story: Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net Jeremy van Loon in Berlin at jvanloon@bloomberg.net

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Obama to Allow Oil Exploration Off U.S. East Coast as Part of Energy Plan

March 31, 2010

By Nicholas Johnston and Kim Chipman March 31 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said today he will allow oil and natural-gas drilling off the U.S. East Coast and cancel development in Bristol Bay, Alaska. The president proposed permitting exploration in the Atlantic Ocean from Delaware south and, if a congressional moratorium is lifted, in the Gulf of Mexico 125 miles (201 kilometers) off the west coast of Florida. “Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources,” Obama said at an event at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Obama’s comments are his most detailed to date on coastal exploration, a topic that has divided lawmakers and now threatens to derail efforts to reach a compromise on climate- change legislation. Democratic senators such as Bill Nelson of Florida have said they won’t support a bill providing for unlimited exploration, while U.S. oil companies press to increase domestic exploration. The expanded exploration will help reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign sources of oil while it begins to transition to new energy sources, the president said. ‘Broader Strategy’ “This announcement is part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on homegrown fuels and clean energy,” Obama said. “The answer is not drilling everywhere all the time.” The decision to scrap leasing in Bristol Bay overturns former President George W. Bush’s action lifting a long-time ban on drilling in the region. “It’s about protecting places that are special as well as looking at additional places that should be opened up for oil and gas development,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said earlier in an interview on Bloomberg Television. In the Atlantic Ocean, Obama is proposing immediate exploration 50 miles off the coast of Virginia and further study elsewhere for new oil and natural gas fields. “It’s absolutely a big change in policy because these areas have been closed for years,” said Stuart Traver, principal adviser at consultant Gaffney, Cline & Associates Ltd. in Singapore. “We’re really talking probably years before we see an impact in terms of new production.” Oil Prices Oil prices have swung from less than $20 a barrel in 2001 to a record $147.27 a barrel in July 2008 as investors bet demand growth would outstrip new findings. Crude oil rose 0.2 percent to $82.55 a barrel at 11:23 a.m. in New York trading, paring a rally of as much as 1.7 percent. “Our member companies are very interested in access and want to see areas opened up,” said Randall Luthi , president of the National Ocean Industries Association. The Washington-based trade group represents companies in the offshore energy industry, such as Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp. A federal ban on drilling off the East and West Coasts and in parts of Alaska expired in 2008. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell , a Republican, supports drilling off the coast of his state and this month signed legislation on how to distribute royalty revenue from energy production. Under Obama’s proposal, the Interior Department will allow the drilling off Virginia’s coast and open up the rest of the outer continental shelf in the south- and mid-Atlantic to oil exploration. Alaska Study In Alaska, along with proposing to cancel leases in Bristol Bay, sales in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas would be scrapped to allow further scientific study. “We will not be moving forward with respect to leasing in those areas until we develop information,” Salazar said. A sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet will proceed. Obama said he expected to be criticized for his decision by critics on the right and left. To soften the blow, he spoke from an Air Force hanger at Andrews Air Force Base, highlighting and F-18 fighter and the light armored vehicle parked behind him. The Army and Marine Corps have been using a mixture of biofuels in the vehicle, and the Navy fighter jet, called a Green Hornet, will be flown for the first time on Earth Day in a few weeks, using a mix of biofuels. The Air Force had the first successful biofuel-powered test flight just last week, the president said. To contact the reporters on this story: Nicholas Johnston in Washington at njohnston3@bloomberg.net ; Kim Chipman in Washington at KChipman@bloomberg.net

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Buffett Backs Toys Gone `Green’ as Parents Sniff Out Plastic at Wal-Mart

March 26, 2010

By Esmé E. Deprez March 26 (Bloomberg) — When Norma Ramos went to the Wal- Mart in North Bergen, New Jersey, last week to shop for her son’s birthday party, she passed over the plastic toys in favor of wooden ones with minimal paint. “Five years ago, I never paid attention,” said Ramos, 36, a mother of three who says she now smells toys to make sure they’re free of plastic odor. “Then I thought about what kind of environment my children’s children would grow up in.” Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Wham-O Inc. and Warren Buffett’s Garan Inc. are backing toys made from natural or recycled materials. As customers such as Ramos get choosier, sales of green toys may balloon to $1 billion, or as much as 5 percent of toy sales in the next five years, according to Earthsense , a Syracuse, New York-based environmental research firm. The heightened interest in green toys is a progression from the trend’s popularity in household cleaning and personal-care products, according to Catherine Fox-Simpson , a retail consultant at BDO Seidman. U.S. sales of natural and organic household cleaners grew 35 percent to $737 million in 2008, according to the Nutrition Business Journal . “Retailers are focused on going green because their consumers are focused on it,” said Fox-Simpson, who is based in Dallas. Paying a Premium While green toys account for less than 1 percent of the market, the number of products is growing, said Jim Silver, editor-in-chief of www.TimetoPlayMag.com. Researcher NPD Group, based in Port Washington, New York, estimated the toy industry’s 2009 retail sales at $21.5 billion. The growth of earth-friendly toys has been hampered by the higher prices that accompany sustainable manufacturing, or making products while using renewable resources, less energy and creating less waste, said Sean McGowan , a New York-based analyst at Needham & Co. “In any economic climate, the willingness to pay a premium to save the earth can be a tough sell,” McGowan said. With the U.S. unemployment rate at about 10 percent, “it’s even harder,” he said. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, may help change that. Shoppers are buying Garanimals blocks and puzzles made with wood from renewable forests, said Melissa O’Brien , a Wal- Mart spokeswoman. Garanimals toys are made by Garan, a unit of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Also popular with customers now are plush animals made from recycled plastic bottles, a product from closely held Dan Dee International Ltd., in Jersey City, New Jersey, O’Brien said. Games, Modeling Dough As Wal-Mart makes a bigger push into green toys, the industry may have to respond. The chain is the biggest toy- seller, said Joseph Feldman , senior retail analyst at Telsey Advisory Group in New York. Based on the square footage devoted to toys in stores, he estimated that toy sales accounted for as much as 7 percent of Wal-Mart’s $258.2 billion in annual U.S. revenue last year. Amazon.com Inc. , the biggest online retailer, said it has seen increased demand for toys with a lighter environmental impact. Popular products include color-matching games made from bamboo and modeling dough made from rice flour and vegetable extracts, according to Sarah Wood, director of the company’s toy store. Both Amazon.com and Wal-Mart declined to provide sales figures. Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc., the two biggest U.S. toy companies, may produce eco-toys of their own to maintain shelf space at retailers, said Reyne Rice , a trend analyst at the New York-based Toy Industry Association. Frisbee-maker Wham-O Inc., based in Emeryville, California, bought Sprig Toys in February to add ecological products, and Rice said there will be more acquisitions in the industry. Sprigwood Fort Collins, Colorado-based Sprig was founded in 2007 by three former designers from Mattel around the time lead-paint toy scandals plagued larger manufacturers. Sprig makes paint- free toys from reclaimed wood and recycled plastic, a composite they call Sprigwood, and uses kinetic energy instead of batteries to power the toys’ lights and sounds. Wham-O, whose products are available at Wal-Mart, Target Corp. and Toys ‘R’ Us Inc., will sell Sprig toys in 4,000 stores this year, Sprig co-founder Justin Discoe said. In 2008, that number was 400. Sprig wouldn’t provide sales figures. Mattel has been working on reducing the size and amount of materials used in packaging and increasing the use of recycled content where possible, said Jules Andres , a spokeswoman for the El Segundo, California-based company. Hasbro, based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, advertises similar strategies on its Web site and declined to comment further. Hampered Growth Wham-O will use its existing factories to make Sprig toys, which will reduce manufacturing costs beginning with the 2010 line, Discoe said. The average price of Sprig’s Captain Owen’s Dolphin Explorer Boat will fall to $19.99 in June from $29.99 last year. “Sprig’s ability to sell eco-friendly toys at prices comparable to ‘regular’ toys is a big deal,” said Needham’s McGowan. Ramos, whose search for birthday-party favors was only her third trip to Wal-Mart, said she has made up for the higher price of eco-friendly toys at specialty stores by purchasing fewer of them. “I’d tend to buy more if they were cheaper,” she said. “I’ll definitely come back to Wal-Mart now that I see what they have.” To contact the reporter on this story: Esmé E. Deprez in New York at edeprez@bloomberg.net

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Chile’s `Somber’ Peso, Bond Markets Weeks Away From Earthquake Recovery

March 2, 2010

By Andrea Jaramillo and Drew Benson March 2 (Bloomberg) — Chilean equity, bond and currency trading may take two weeks to recover after volumes plunged following the strongest earthquake in five decades, according to the local unit of Bank of Nova Scotia. Stock volume yesterday was 179.1 million shares, 57 percent of the average traded over the previous month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Equity volume was about half the normal $150 million, said Hugo Aravena of Scotiabank’s Scotia AFG in Santiago. About $260 million in currency traded, one-third the usual volume, as most traders halted transactions at noon, two hours early, said Denisse Bocaz , a trader with Banco Santader Chile in Santiago. “It was very emotional to come into the office,” said Aravena, who helps manage $1.5 billion at Scotia AFG. “The place is sad and somber. Everyone is worried.” The benchmark Ipsa share index fell for a second day today after posting the biggest decline in the world yesterday. The measure slid 1.2 percent in the first day of trading after the Feb. 27 temblor killed at least 700 people, severed highways and damaged 1.5 million homes. The peso pared a retreat of as much as 1 percent, losing less than 0.1 percent to 524.70 per dollar, on speculation the government will repatriate overseas savings to fund reconstruction. Trading in Santiago will take about two weeks to return to levels achieved before the quake, said Luis Cancino , head of the asset and liability management unit for Scotiabank Sud Americano SA. Luis Morales , a currency trader at BCI Corredor de Bolsa SA, said it will be “at least a week.” The Ipsa’s drop to 3,782.04 was the biggest since Feb. 5. Copper Rises Copper, Chile’s biggest export, jumped to a seven-week high in New York yesterday after the 8.8-magnitude quake shut some mines in the world’s largest producer of the metal. The yield for a basket of Chile’s 10-year peso bonds in inflation-linked currency units slid four basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, to 2.96 percent, the lowest since October, according to Bloomberg composite prices. “There’s not a lot of liquidity in the market, neither in the peso nor in the fixed income market,” said Andres Orlandi , an emerging market strategist at Deutsche Bank AG in New York. The total economic cost of the quake, which was centered 200 miles (317 kilometers) southwest of Santiago, may be as much as $30 billion, or about 15 percent of the South American country’s gross domestic product, according to estimates by disaster-scenario modeler Eqecat Inc. Aravena said he found computers on the floor and cables disconnected when he arrived at his office at 8:30 a.m. yesterday. ‘Traumatic’ Day “Evidence was everywhere” of the quake, he said. Traders and their co-workers spent much of the day talking about where they were when the quake hit, according to Morales and Diego Echenique , a trader with Larrain Vial SA in Santiago. Trading took a backseat to emotion. “You can feel people’s stress,” said Morales, 35. “Everyone told their story when they arrived. It’s traumatic.” Morales was a boy when the country suffered its last major earthquake in 1985. That one, he said, was nothing compared with the early morning rumbling this weekend that shook his apartment floor so much he couldn’t get out of bed. “I’ve never seen the earth move like that,” he said. “Never ever ever ever.” To contact the reporters on this story: Andrea Jaramillo in Bogota at Ajaramillo1@bloomberg.net ; Drew Benson in Buenos Aires at abenson9@bloomberg.net ;

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Earth’s Axis Probably Shifted in Chilean Earthquake, NASA Scientist Says

March 1, 2010

By Alex Morales March 1 (Bloomberg) — The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said. Earthquakes can involve shifting hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet. This affects the Earth’s rotation, said Richard Gross , a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who uses a computer model to calculate the effects. “The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second),” Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply to questions. “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).” The changes can be modeled, though they’re difficult to physically detect given their small size, Gross said. Some changes may be more obvious, and islands may have shifted, according to Andreas Rietbrock , a professor of Earth Sciences at the U.K.’s Liverpool University who has studied the area impacted, though not since the latest temblor. Santa Maria Island off the coast near Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city, may have been raised 2 meters (6 feet) as a result of the latest quake, Rietbrock said today in a telephone interview. He said the rocks there show evidence pointing to past earthquakes shifting the island upward in the past. ‘Ice-Skater Effect’ “It’s what we call the ice-skater effect,” David Kerridge , head of Earth hazards and systems at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, said today in a telephone interview. “As the ice skater puts when she’s going around in a circle, and she pulls her arms in, she gets faster and faster. It’s the same idea with the Earth going around if you change the distribution of mass, the rotation rate changes.” Rietbrock said he hasn’t been able to get in touch with seismologists in Concepcion to discuss the quake, which registered 8.8 on the Richter scale. “What definitely the earthquake has done is made the Earth ring like a bell,” Rietbrock said. The magnitude 9.1 Sumatran in 2004 that generated an Indian Ocean tsunami shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted the axis by about 2.3 milliarcseconds, Gross said. The changes happen on the day and then carry on “forever,” Benjamin Fong Chao , dean of Earth Sciences of the National Central University in Taiwan, said in an e-mail. “This small contribution is buried in larger changes due to other causes, such as atmospheric mass moving around on Earth,” Chao said. To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net .

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Obama Kills NASA Plan to Return to Moon, Farms Out Space Ferry Operations

February 1, 2010

By Jeff Bliss Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama proposed scrapping a Bush administration plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 in a budget for NASA that would instead farm out some space operations to companies for missions closer to Earth. The lunar program, known as Constellation, “was over budget, behind schedule and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies” according to the budget plan Obama issued today. Obama’s budget would increase fiscal year 2011 funds for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration by 1.5 percent and support the development of rocket systems that eventually might take U.S. astronauts back into deep space. In preparation for those trips, Obama envisions using robotic ships to find locations for future landings and test out new technology. The plan to drop the moon strategy already has drawn opposition from lawmakers such as Senator Bill Nelson , a Florida Democrat, who said they feared the changes could risk U.S. leadership in space. NASA’s space shuttles are launched from Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s Atlantic coast. The Obama proposal “begins the death march for the future of U.S. human space flight,” said Senator Richard Shelby , the senior Republican on the subcommittee that determines NASA’s budget, in a statement. If the budget is enacted, NASA “will be the agency of pipe dreams and fairy tales,” he said. Companies won’t have the capability to safely transport astronauts in the next few years, the Alabama lawmaker said. Details of the budget began coming out last week. Congressional Role Shelby, whose state is home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, was behind legislation that requires the administration to work with Congress on any changes to the human spaceflight program. Skepticism about Constellation deepened after a presidential commission concluded last year that NASA would need $3 billion more a year for the program and wouldn’t get back to the lunar surface until 2028. Under the administration’s proposal, the space agency’s budget would rise to $19 billion from $18.7 billion this year. The plan would boost NASA’s funding $6 billion over five years. Rockets made by companies would be used to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, whose life under the budget would be extended five years to 2020, according to the administration’s plan. The outpost, which orbits about 250 miles above Earth, is being developed in partnership with Russia, Canada, Japan and other nations. Cargo Contracts Companies such as Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. have NASA contracts to transport cargo and may compete for the astronaut taxi-service funding. Money would be put toward a test program so that NASA could work with industry to create new rendezvous and docking systems. The budget, if approved by Congress, would end large contracts for the building of new rockets to go to the moon and eventually to Mars. A justification for the Constellation program was to use a new human presence on the moon to test technology for use on the Martian surface. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden , a former space shuttle commander, said last week in Israel that any trip back to the moon would be an international endeavor. Major contractors for Constellation’s primary rockets, the Ares I and Ares V, include Minneapolis-based Alliant Techsystems Inc., Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp . and the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne Inc. unit of Hartford, Connecticut-based United Technologies Corp. Robotic Craft Supported Obama’s budget promotes the use of robotic spacecraft following years of extensive scientific discoveries in the solar system achieved with investments far smaller than what is required to sustain humans in space. The robotic rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in January 2004 for a 90-day mission, are still operating on the planet, although Spirit is now immobile on the precipice of a sand-filled crater. The rovers have found evidence that water once flowed on Mars and may have nurtured life. The Obama budget would support the development of satellites that monitor global climate change, specifically devices that oversee changes in polar ice sheets. The Science Mission Directorate, which includes climate-change monitoring, would get a 12 percent funding boost to $5 billion from $4.5 billion. The administration would fly the five remaining missions of the space shuttle into 2011 to ensure safety. The three-decade program is scheduled to shut down this year. To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington jbliss@bloomberg.net .

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Harvard Stargazer Sasselov Maps Last Frontier 5,000 Light-Years From Davos

January 26, 2010

By A. Craig Copetas Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) — Some 5,000 light-years from this week’s World Economic Forum and the worst earthly economic crisis since the Great Depression, astronomer Dimitar Sasselov is charting the New Frontier for investment capital over a bespoke iPhone app that connects with a planet called Sheila. “Globalization is complete,” the director of Harvard University’s Origins of Life Initiative Project says, tapping his smart phone into the radio-telescope transmissions that on Nov. 12, 2002, led him to discover OGLE-TR-56b, the exosolar world that he unofficially named after his wife. “It’s feasible that we’ll meet other sentient life forms and conduct commerce with them,” Sasselov says, pointing toward Sheila from Harvard’s astronomy-department laboratory. “We don’t now have the technology to physically travel outside our solar system for such an exchange to take place, but we are like Columbus centuries ago, learning fast how to get somewhere few think possible.” The 48-year-old Sasselov, who wears spectacles and favors open-collar shirts, is one of a sky-gazing coterie of physicists and starship builders the WEF has invited to its 40th anniversary 2010 gathering in Davos, Switzerland. Also scheduled to attend is Jill Tarter , who holds the Bernard M. Oliver Chair at SETI , the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute in Mountain View, California. ‘Redefine Life’ In the wake of recent discoveries of Earth-like planets that may be able to support some sort of life form beyond the boundaries of our solar system, the WEF is looking to expand the horizons of 2,500 global leaders, including Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann , Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt and Archer Daniels Midland Co. CEO Patricia Woertz . Sasselov says he hopes to stir realization that research about other planets can “redefine life as we know it” and eventually create a market in the Milky Way and beyond. Brad Durham , co-founder and managing director of Emerging Portfolio Fund Research Inc. in Boston, isn’t laughing about sending investment bankers on a 23 million light-year journey to the Whirlpool Galaxy. “Businessmen once thought Columbus was ridiculous, but he was the adventure capitalist who helped create globalization,” the 47-year-old executive of the research group says. “People in my field pay serious attention to Sasselov’s work because what’s knowable in our business can be thrown out the window real fast. It’s likely going to take many lifetimes before we can take advantage of outer space as an emerging market, but it’s best not to be hobbled by the lack of imagination on Earth.” Planetary Condos As for the viability of conducting commerce in the cosmos, Bulgarian-born Sasselov, who studied at Sofia University and the University of Toronto, smiles at the notion and recalls one of the questions he was asked in 2003 by a property developer who attended Harvard’s Real Estate Academic Initiative seminar. “He seriously wanted to know who owned the land on these planets,” Sasselov says. “Everyone in the room said they had the same question. It’s a compelling topic.” Sasselov, whose WEF seminar on Jan. 27 is titled “Life on Other Planets,” describes the process of sparking awareness of space’s possibilities as “exotic enlightenment” and says that the statistical odds are that extraterrestrial business beings will arrive on Earth before we get to them. “Our DNA is not currently accustomed to this type of exploration,” he says. Ray Johnson is seeking to beat those odds. He’s the 54- year-old chief technology officer at Lockheed Martin Corp., the Bethesda, Maryland-based company that makes space ships, including Orion, the next-generation Space Shuttle. Lunar Express “The excitement of space-exploration systems is that they’ve moved from the extraordinary to becoming part of our everyday lives,” says Johnson, who’s scheduled to moderate a separate WEF seminar on how to avoid tragedy in outer space. “I don’t think in distance, but rather how much time it takes to get there. Our Pluto New Horizons spacecraft travels at 50,000 miles-per-hour. That’s an eight-hour trip to the moon. Imagine if we could increase the speed by a factor of 10.” That’s precisely what Lockheed Martin’s version of Hollywood’s USS Enterprise Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott spends his time thinking about. “The future is all about the interface between man and machine, the biological component,” Johnson explains. “The more propulsion we have, the further out we can explore.” Johnson says a more immediate problem in visiting Sheila any time soon is the garbage Earthlings have left on the path. Solar Energy “There are thousands of dangerous objects in orbit larger than 10 centimeters and they’re in the way of exploring further reaches or thinking about establishing a space colony or mining minerals from the moon,” Johnson says. “It’s difficult to imagine an affordable way to get materials in orbit for the eventual colonization of space without orbiting platforms to harvest solar energy for next-generation propulsion systems.” So Johnson’s crew members are designing “space tugs” that can seize the debris and haul it back to Earth for disposal. Another flying garbage truck under development is the Solar Orbital Debris Spacecraft, an outer-space sailboat fitted with spinnakers that convert solar energy into power. “This is the future of space exploration,” Johnson says. “We must continue to explore all concepts that might allow us to extend the duration of manned flight.” Back to Earth Yet is it prudent for WEF members to spend time and money exploring outer space when the forum’s 2010 Global Agenda Council on “Rebuilding Critical Infrastructure” estimates that $42 trillion is needed over the next 20 years to improve water, road, port and air-traffic-control systems on Earth? “What Sasselov and Johnson are offering is jaw-dropping information of extraordinary value,” says crisis consultant Robert Dilenschneider , CEO of the New York-based Dilenschneider Group Inc. and a 28-year WEF veteran. “Bankers and corporate CEOs in Davos always turn a blind eye to long-range thinking,” he says. “It’s shameful. Given the current state of the world, we need to rethink everything in the interest of survival. It’s also much more interesting than watching the movers and shakers networking Davos for their next big deal.” There are 10 trillion stars in the range of Earth’s telescopes and a space vessel traveling at 1 million miles-per- hour would take 4,000 years to reach the nearest star system. If someone out there wants to get in touch with us before we arrive, there’s a good chance that Anson Fatland will be one of the first to hear about it though he won’t be listening from Davos. Paul Allen Fatland manages the science-and-technology portfolio for the Paul Allen Foundation in Seattle. He says the co-founder of Microsoft Corp. has invested $30 million over the past 10 years to erect and maintain the 42 sky-eyes that make up the Allen Telescope Array 3,000 feet above sea level along the peaks of Hat Creek, California. The math isn’t for the squeamish: ATA has the capability to tune into the activities taking place on 4×10 to the 10th power billion stars. “This is cost-effective, transformative exploration,” the 39-year-old Fatland says of the dishes that transmit signals via the Internet to Sasselov and hundreds of other astronomers. “We collect radio waves, chart star formations and conduct galactic mapping,” Fatland says. “It doesn’t take a billion dollars to create a world-class research instrument.” Budgeting for Space NASA historian and Auburn University Professor James Hansen calculates the total global expenditure on space exploration since the 1957 launch of Sputnik to be some $1 trillion. “It’s about $17.5 billion annually over 53 years,” he says, “though it’s likely more because so much space exploration connects to military spending, which wouldn’t be included in any estimate.” Physicist David Livingston, host of the syndicated U.S. radio program The Space Show and a professor of space studies at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, says how Earthlings apply future expenditures is more important than the cost of getting there. Indeed, along with his colleagues, astronaut Buzz Aldrin and actor Tom Hanks at the Washington, D.C.-based National Space Society , Livingston’s Code of Ethics for Off-Earth Commerce sets the framework for how humankind should conduct business upon contact with alien bankers. “We’re committed to ensuring a free-market economy off- Earth,” Livingston says. “Treat outer space with respect, concern and thoughtful deliberation, regardless of the presence or absence of life forms.” Destination Sheila Back in his lab, Sasselov scrawls with a piece of chalk on a blackboard filled with equations aimed at helping map out a trajectory for the Kepler Mission, a NASA spacecraft aimed at finding habitable planets that is currently 100 million kilometers from Earth and moving fast. “Columbus forced everyone to rethink, redesign and rebuild their world view,” Sasselov says. “That’s what we’re doing here. To put it in 15th-century terms, we’ve reached the Canary Islands. Getting to where we ultimately want to go is a slow process that involves astronomers, aeronautical engineers, biochemists, anthropologists and businessmen.” As for what we might find on Sheila or any of the other tens of billions of potential “super-Earths” out there, Sasselov says “we’d likely experience a bit more back pain from the surface gravity, but it would be worth it to visit such a great tourist spot; the landscape would be familiar, it would feel very much like home.” To contact the writer on the story: A. Craig Copetas in Davos at ccopetas@bloomberg.net .

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EarthRenew Names Ron McIntosh, Director

January 20, 2010

CALGARY, AB–(Marketwire – January 20, 2010) – Ronald A. McIntosh, 67, was appointed to the board of directors of privately-held EarthRenew Corporation, the company announced here today. EarthRenew now has seven board members, four of which are independent. Mr. McIntosh’s experience has been as an executive and board member with mergers and acquisitions, public equity offerings, IPOs, corporate transformations and repositioning, and executive transitions. He served on public and private company boards including board chair, chair of health safety and environment and reserves committee, and as a member of audit, governance, compensation, and risk committees. He currently sits on the boards of North American Energy Partners Inc., Edmonton; Advantage Oil and Gas Ltd., Calgary and Fortress Energy Inc., Calgary.

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Jamaica’s Risk of Quake Increased by Tectonic Plate Shift in Haiti Temblor

January 15, 2010

By Tom Randall and Meg Tirrell Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) — The magnitude 7 earthquake that killed as many as 100,000 people in Haiti this week may increase the likelihood of a future quake in Jamaica, according to seismologists who study geologic risk. When aftershocks subside in the coming weeks, Haiti’s prospects of another earthquake will plummet, while areas west along the same fault line will see increased seismic pressure, said Stuart Sipkin , a seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado. It could take decades or a century for the pressure to rupture on the western edge of the fault in Jamaica. A similar quake flattened the Haitian capital of Port-au- Prince 240 years ago, so long ago that most residents were unaware they were at risk, said Roger Musson, who advises engineers on regional dangers for the British Geological Survey. The 1770 upheaval was part of a string of westward-moving temblors that culminated in Jamaica in 1907, he said. “In Haiti, there’s not been earthquakes in living memory; now it’s likely that the stress will be increased on the next segment along,” Musson, the agency’s head of seismic hazard, said in a telephone interview. However, he added, “You are constantly surprised by earthquakes doing things that they’re not supposed to do.” Haiti lies near the eastern end of a fault line between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates — massive subterranean sections of the earth’s crust that move at about the speed that human fingernails grow, Sipkin said. Stuck Together When the two passing tectonic plates get stuck together, pressure builds until it is relieved through a violent movement of earth, Sipkin said. It probably took about 20 to 30 seconds for the fault to break, said Kate Hutton, a seismologist at the Seismological Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “People probably felt it for longer,” Hutton said today in a telephone interview. “People’s perception of time slows down when they get really stressed.” The Haiti earthquake was a “worst-case scenario,” a shallow rupture in the earth that ripped through a densely populated and poorly constructed city, said Pedro de Alba, professor of civil engineering at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. The depth of the rupture is important, because if it occurs deep in the earth, much of the energy is absorbed by rock, he said. “A shallow earthquake is the worst possible kind,” de Alba said in a telephone interview today. “Pressure was building up for quite a long time.” De Alba said the probability of a future quake west along the fault line has increased, “but to what extent we simply can’t predict.” To contact the reporters on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net ; Meg Tirrell in New York at mtirrell@bloomberg.net ;

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Martin Luz: China’s Newest Export: Better PR for China

January 6, 2010

Lest you think that PR is just for tarnished sports heroes, bankrupt corporations and divorcing GOP hypocrites heavyweights , last month China launched a PR campaign aimed at improving the image of “Made In China.” Indeed, they could use some PR help. On the “quality” front, China’s reputation is a total disaster , with high profile contaminations of everything from drywall , to milk , toys , toothpaste , tires , pet food , seafood (for humans), and pharmaceuticals … and who knows what else that hasn’t been caught. That’s not even mentioning the dust clouds blowing from China that circle the Earth. Or the tons of mercury settling on the U.S. from China’s coal-fired power plants. But as necessary as the campaign may be, it highlights some key things about PR that people outside the profession need to know. And some in the profession still need to learn. Here is the first … (the second will come later) … Whether you’re a person, company or country … you can’t change your image if your behavior undermines your message at every turn. Undermining Your Own Message The China campaign tries to lip-lock the rest of the world with the idea that we are all the greatest of partners.

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Freezing Weather From China to Florida Disrupts Travel, Boosts Juice Costs

January 5, 2010

By Margot Habiby and Whitney McFerron Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) — Record snows and cold stretching from China to the U.K. to Florida are threatening crops and disrupting travel while sending futures prices higher for orange juice, cattle and hogs. At least four deaths on U.S. highways have been blamed on the winter weather streaming into the Midwest and South, according to the Associated Press. Seven people were killed in an avalanche in Switzerland. AccuWeather.com , based in State College, Pennsylvania, predicted the worst U.S. winter in 25 years. “It’ll be like the great winters of the ‘60s and ‘70s,” Joe Bastardi , the chief meteorologist for AccuWeather, said in a statement yesterday. He compared the temperature forecast with January 1985, when readings below zero Fahrenheit (minus-18 Celsius) were seen from Chicago to Georgia. The U.K. is suffering its longest period of widespread snow and cold since December 1981, Sarah Holland, a spokeswoman for the government weather service, said in a telephone interview today. The cold has lasted 18 days and could last “for the next couple of weeks,” she said, with as much as a foot of snow expected in parts of southern England tonight. In China, air traffic and coal deliveries were hampered by heavy snows and the lowest temperatures in 50 years. Beijing readings are forecast to drop as low as minus 16 degrees Celsius tonight, according to the China Meteorological Administration . Wheat and Citrus For U.S. agriculture “the main story is that the cold could cause problems for central Plains wheat and widespread frost for Florida citrus,” Matt Rogers , a forecaster at Commodity Weather Group, said in a note to clients. In citrus-growing areas of Florida and Texas, the lows hovered just above freezing in most areas last night, sparing the crops, AccuWeather said. Orange-juice futures rose for a second day today on concern for citrus yields in Florida, the world’s largest orange grower after Brazil. Futures for March delivery rose 10 cents, the most permitted by the ICE Futures U.S. exchange in New York, or 7.5 percent, to $1.4355 a pound at 1:42 p.m. Damage is possible from Tampa and Orlando northward as temperatures may drop below freezing by tomorrow, and more cold weather will return this weekend, said Bob Tarr, an agricultural meteorologist at AccuWeather. Northeast Cold Temperatures in New York City and Boston are forecast to be as much as 12 degrees below average by Jan. 10, according to MDA Federal Inc.’s EarthSat Energy Weather of Rockville, Maryland. The U.S. Northeast is responsible for about four-fifths of the country’s heating oil use. In the central U.S., temperatures will be 25 degrees below average in Houston on Jan. 8 and 16 degrees below normal in Cincinnati on Jan. 9, according to EarthSat. About 72 percent of households in the Midwest use natural gas for heat. “This is a big deal as far as the cash basis or local markets are concerned, especially heating oil,” said Jim Rouiller , a senior meteorologist at Planalytics Inc. in Wayne, Pennsylvania. “As far as the Nymex is concerned, I think people have already written in the intense cold for the next few days. They did lift prices for the past few days.” Heating oil for prompt delivery at New York Harbor has risen 14 percent in the past nine days, the longest rally since July, according to Bloomberg data. The fuel gained 1.17 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $2.2010 a gallon today, the highest since October 2008. Crude Oil Crude oil for February delivery rose for a ninth day, up 26 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $81.77 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Natural gas for February delivery fell 24.7 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $5.637 per million Btu on the Nymex amid forecasts the cold will break starting Jan. 15. “The main excitement for the next several days is definitely covering all of your main hubs east of the Rockies with a lot of cold weather,” said Michael Schlacter , the chief meteorologist at Weather 2000 Inc. in New York. “On a national scale, it’ll probably be the coldest if not the most impactful week we’ve seen since early December.” Natural gas priced for prompt delivery at Henry Hub in Erath, Louisiana, rose to a 13-month high of $6.08 per million British thermal units yesterday, according to Bloomberg data. Natural Gas Hogs increased today and cattle futures rose for the second time in three sessions and on speculation that cold weather in the northern U.S. Great Plains will reduce animal-weight gains and stall shipments to slaughterhouses. Cattle futures for February delivery rose 0.95 cent, or 1.1 percent, to 86.325 cents a pound on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The price gained 1.3 percent on Dec. 31. Hog futures for February settlement climbed 1.75 cents, or 2.7 percent, to 67.6 cents a pound in Chicago. Earlier, the most-active contract touched 67.8 cents, the highest price since Dec. 3. Temperatures in parts of Nebraska, the second-largest cattle-producing state, may touch minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit this week, according to the National Weather Service . Average steer weights at slaughter fell 2.3 percent in the past three weeks as animals used more energy to keep warm. The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center forecast a reprieve from the cold for the U.S. Midwest in the next six to 10 days, with normal to above-normal temperatures from Michigan to Nebraska. Temperature Outlook The forecast calls for below-normal temperatures east of the Mississippi, with southeastern U.S. getting the brunt of it. Temperatures will also remain below normal in Oklahoma and Texas, according to the National Weather Service. While snow can help insulate the ground in the North, cold tends to seep into the snowless Southern farmland and “cause more damage to crop root systems,” Schlacter said. “This kind of winter appears for the South maybe once a decade,” Schlacter said. “This is what people with energy or commodities bookkeeping are trying to keep up with. We’ve had colder months and patterns in Chicago and the Northeast, but the real headline is the southern half.” To contact the reporters on this story: Margot Habiby in Dallas at mhabiby@bloomberg.net ; Whitney McFerron in Chicago at wmcferron1@bloomberg.net .

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Climate Deal Brokered by U.S., China May Give Obama More Sway in Senate

December 20, 2009

By Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Kim Chipman Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) — The first offer by China and India to limit greenhouse gases in a global agreement may help U.S. President Barack Obama win over members of the Senate who don’t want to impose similar restrictions on American companies. The accord brokered by the three countries last week at United Nations talks in Copenhagen , while not legally binding, also calls for international verification. That addresses demands by senators who oppose UN rules that may hurt U.S. businesses’ ability to compete in the global marketplace. “The agreement helps us politically deal with the concerns that we would be putting American manufacturers at a disadvantage,” Senator Benjamin Cardin , a Maryland Democrat, said in an interview on Dec. 19, the day most of the world’s nations endorsed a framework termed the Copenhagen Accord. The plan calls for another year of talks for a treaty to tackle global warming by capping emissions and expanding the $120 billion carbon market. A U.S. law allowing carbon trading would move the market’s “center of gravity” from London to New York and Chicago, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said today . Some senators may never reverse their opposition to U.S. climate-protection legislation because China won’t follow through with its new duties, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma said last week. China and India are the largest and fourth- largest producers of gases from burning fossil fuels. Inhofe, a Republican, has called the idea of man-made global warming a “hoax.” He spent a few hours in Copenhagen to ensure nations wouldn’t be “deceived into thinking the U.S. would pass cap-and-trade legislation,” the incentive system that requires emission permits and lets companies trade them. ‘First Step’ The Copenhagen Accord, called a “first step,” by Obama, may sway a few legislators to his side because it doesn’t legally bind the U.S. to limits imposed by other countries. “The agreement probably isn’t sufficient to win over conservative Republican votes, but may be sufficient to provide political cover for moderate Democratic votes from the coal and rural states,” said Robert Stavins , director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The U.S. president arrived at UN-led climate talks last week hindered by his own legislative priorities. Congressional debate over U.S. health care has put a climate-protection bill on the backburner until next year. Lack of legislation from the Senate, the only U.S. body authorized to approve treaties, left U.S. negotiators without clear guidelines on what lawmakers would accept in an accord. The strongest message to date from the Senate on global climate policy remains a 1998 resolution rejecting the existing Kyoto Protocol because it requires industrialized nations to cut emissions, not developing countries such as China and India. Emissions Pledges The Copenhagen Accord gives nations until Feb. 1 to offer emissions pledges. It’s unclear whether reductions will reach levels scientists say are needed to limit heat-trapping gases they blame for global warming. Bolivia, Sudan and Venezuela were among countries that spoke out against the accord that analysts say will still provide impetus to U.S. legislators. “The Senate needed assurances that the U.S. is not stepping out alone,” Eric Haxthausen , climate policy director for Nature Conservancy, the Arlington, Virginia-based advisory group headed by Mark Tercek , former environmental markets chief at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The UN climate summit that ended Dec. 19, “as messy as it was, was sufficient to deliver on that objective.” The agreement fell short of unanimous support from UN members. It lacked the teeth of a treaty that was wanted by many of the 193 nations at the conference. The environmental group Friends of the Earth called it a failure. Unprecedented Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International, said the accord lacks strong emissions targets and provides concessions to fossil fuel industries. “Averting climate chaos has just gotten a whole lot harder,” Naidoo said in a statement. U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer , the California Democrat who heads a committee that drafted a climate change bill, said the deal was unprecedented. “For the first time, the world’s major emitting countries, including China and India, have committed to specific actions to cut greenhouse gas pollution,” Boxer said in Dec. 18 statement. “While there is more work to do, the progress made today will add to the momentum here at home for legislation,” to curb emissions. Trail of Legislation The U.S. House in June passed legislation that calls for a 17 percent reduction in emissions by 2020. The Senate may take up a similar measure in next year. Most Republicans oppose climate change legislation they claim will raise energy prices just as the U.S. is emerging from a recession. About half of U.S. electricity comes from burning coal, the most polluting fossil fuel and the most at risk, and the reliance in Indiana is 94 percent, according to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry group that supports coal. In Ohio, coal provides 86 percent of power. Prior to the two-week conference in the Danish capital, nine U.S. senators sent a letter to Obama warning that bad climate policy could hurt U.S. companies and workers without improving the environment. Any accord should require “all major economies to adopt ambitious, measurable and verifiable actions,” according the Dec. 3 letter signed by senators from states such as Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The Copenhagen agreement, which calls for international measurement, reporting and verification of emissions cutting by poorer nations, was reached after Obama had last-minute talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao , Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh , Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and South African President, Jacob Zuma . The accord carries more weight because it was reached in face-to-face meetings between the leaders, Haxthausen said. “Rather than having an agreement that was hammered out by negotiators, this was an extraordinary situation where the leaders came together and agreed to something,” he said. “You have the pledges of these leaders personally to each other.” To contact the reporters on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr . in Copenhagen at jefstathiou@bloomberg.net Kim Chipman in Copenhagen at kchipman@bloomberg.net

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James Cameron’s `Avatar’ Opens With $73 Million Sales, Record for 3-D Film

December 20, 2009

By Michael White Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) — “Avatar,” James Cameron’s science- fiction epic, led the box office with $73 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales its opening weekend, a record for a 3-D movie that may aid in expanding the format. Walt Disney Co. ’s “The Princess and the Frog” was second with $12.2 million, Hollywood.com Box-Office said today in an e- mailed statement. “Avatar,” Cameron’s first movie since “Titanic,” ranks among the most expensive ever made with an estimated budget of $230 million, according to the Internet Movie Database. The News Corp. film, playing on 3,124 3-D screens at 2,032 locations, may take in as much as $400 million in theaters, estimates Tony Wible , an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia. The previous record of $68.1 million for a 3-D opening was set by Disney’s “Up” this year, according to Box Office Mojo. In “Avatar,” an Earth corporation seeking rare minerals on a distant planet employs a private army to subdue the inhabitants. Australian actor Sam Worthington plays an ex-Marine who spies on the aliens by inhabiting a body cloned from their genetic material. Cameron, 55, began writing the story in 1995 and spent 10 years developing technology, including a 3-D camera system, to create the world he imagined. Improve Attendance? The movie may further convince studios and theater owners that 3-D movies help improve attendance, Cameron said in a Dec. 16 interview. “It seems like with DVD sales down there’s a renewed emphasis on the actual cinematic experience,” Cameron said. “‘Avatar’ was absolutely intended to be that kind of movie and maybe demonstrate how 3-D can be an enabler of that.” Ticket sales are poised to surpass $10 billion this year, Hollywood.com Box-Office has projected. The take was aided by more than a dozen 3-D movies, including “Up,” which went on to generate $293 million domestically. Theaters charge about a $3 per ticket premium for films in the format. Twenty-two 3-D pictures are planned over the next two years, according to Los Angeles-based Exhibitor Relations Co. Imax Corp. , based in Mississauga, Ontario, said this month that “Avatar” would be shown in a record 261 theaters that use its enhanced sound and image system, including 178 locations in the U.S. and Canada. ‘Princess and the Frog’ Industry efforts to outfit theaters with equipment that can be used for 3-D have been hampered by funding delays. One group, Digital Cinema Implementation Partners, had set a November goal to raise $725 million. “Avatar” may take in $320 million to $400 million domestically, according to Wible. “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” is the top U.S. and Canadian film this year with $402 million in sales for Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures. “The Princess and the Frog,” in first place last week, fell to second. The movie from Burbank, California-based Disney , and drawn from the classic fairy tale, is set in New Orleans during the Jazz era. Oprah Winfrey and Terrence Howard are among those lending their voices. “The Blind Side,” a football drama starring Sandra Bullock , dropped to third from second, with $10 million in receipts for Warner Bros. To contact the reporter on this story: Michael White in Los Angeles at mwhite8@bloomberg.net .

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`Famous Comma’ Again Slows Climate Talks as Punctuation Tiff Splits Envoys

December 17, 2009

By Alex Morales and Kim Chipman Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) — A single contentious comma inserted into a paragraph of a United Nations climate deal two years ago is again causing squabbles among delegates from 193 nations in Copenhagen devising a method to fight global warming. The comma was inserted on the first page, section b (ii), of the so-called Bali Action Plan at the meeting on the Indonesian island in 2007 at the insistence of the U.S. It caused a debate that ran for two hours as the punctuation mark left open to interpretation the responsibilities of rich and poor nations to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. “The famous comma! It allowed both sides to read the text the way they wanted to,” said Jennifer Havercamp , managing director of policy and negotiations at the Washington-based Environmental Defense Fund . Havercamp was in the room during the punctuation debate in Bali. The Bali Action Plan set parameters for two weeks of talks in Copenhagen that should conclude tomorrow when U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrive in the Danish capital, joining more than 100 other world leaders. They will take over the debate from envoys who have bickered and walked out over provisions for a climate deal since Dec. 7. Issues dividing delegates include the size of cuts in greenhouse gases by developed nations, verifying emission reductions by developing countries, and possible climate aid worth $100 billion a year from rich to poor nations. The Bali Comma The Bali paragraph says treaty talks should yield “nationally appropriate” actions by developing countries to curb emissions “in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity- building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner.” The comma after “building” was dropped and then reinserted at the Bush administration’s insistence. Delegates from the U.S. argued for the comma to be inserted so that “actions” by developing countries and not just support from industrialized nations, would be measurable, reportable and verifiable, or MRV in UN jargon. “It took almost two hours to debate the comma,” Quamrul Chowdhury , a Bangladeshi envoy who’s negotiated climate issues since before the Rio Earth summit in 1992, said in an interview in Copenhagen. “One comma creates a lot of trouble.” Even with the comma, the clause is still argued over. The U.S. considers the Bali plan clear in saying that all emissions-reducing actions by developing nations should be subject to MRV, not just those that receive financing, according to a senior Obama administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Devil in the Details “That is definitely not what the Bali Action Plan provided for,” China’s climate change ambassador, Yu Qingtai , said in an interview in Copenhagen. Mexican Environment Minister Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada agrees. “The actions we take, for example, the capture of methane from a garbage dump can be measurable, reportable and verifiable for international purposes if they’re going to give us financing,” Elvira said in an interview. “They can’t impose MRV on my developing country if they’re not giving us any aid.” Such details can disrupt UN treaty-making. Text on deforestation was held up for years over whether to use the plural “indigenous peoples,” said Andrew Deutz , director of international government relations at the Nature Conservancy, an environmental advocacy group in Arlington, Virginia. The U.S. has a history of opposing references to the rights of “peoples” because of the impact it could have on U.S. domestic law and the rights of Native Americans, said Deutz. Senator John Kerry , a Massachusetts Democrat who traveled this week to Copenhagen to push for an agreement, said in an interview that when it comes to what the U.S. wants from China, verification is the “single most important ingredient.” Tale of Two Treaties The U.S. Senate’s view of China is crucial because it is the only U.S. body authorized to approve treaties. The chamber rejected the current Kyoto Protocol in 1998 because it required rich nations to cut carbon-dioxide pollution from factories, power plants and other sources, yet not China and other major developing countries. “The comma is a manifestation of a massive area of disagreement still among the parties,” Havercamp of the Environmental Defense Fund said. As delegates struggled to agree on one treaty, they also discussed having two instead. With host country Denmark trying to break an impasse in the talks yesterday, envoys were at one point considering four drafts of potential treaties. Envoys “lost a lot of negotiating time” yesterday as they debated whether to work on two texts proposed by Denmark, or continue to debate the UN’s two official texts, Selwin Hart , a Barbadian delegate who speaks for 43 island and low-lying states, said today in a telephone interview. “We’re prepared to work throughout the night to get a deal,” Hart said. Verbs, Modifiers Even U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn’t escape questions on word usage when she held a press conference today in Copenhagen. Asked about the proposed climate treaty text, she noted that officials at her level are spared the headache of agonizing over every word in the negotiations. “The advantage of being secretary of state is I’m up here at the large macro-level and they (negotiators) have to get down into the nitty gritty and determine exactly what verb and modifier needs to be used.” Later asked how the U.S. interpreted the words “should” and “shall” in a treaty, she said it depended on the context. “If you are referring to transparency, there shall be a transparency,” she said. To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in Copenhagen via amorales2@bloomberg.net .

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Hottest Plan at Climate Talks Never Got Onto Table

December 9, 2009

By Alex Morales and Kim Chipman Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — The proposal drawing the most attention and criticism at the United Nations climate-change talks in Copenhagen never got put on the table. The formula for slowing global warming, circulated by Denmark before the two-week negotiations started Dec. 7, has generated a stir because Denmark is the host country for more than 190 nations, striving to be neutral. The plan, leaked more than a week ago, is flawed because it was drawn up outside the UN process without input from poorer nations, said Kim Carstensen , head of the global climate initiative at environmental group WWF. UN climate chief Yvo de Boer issued a statement saying the paper is “informal” only. “It has been dealt with in closed circles, closed meetings without proper representation from all groups,” Carstensen told reporters yesterday. “It is being seen by developing countries as an attempt to accommodate the interests of the U.S. and other developed countries.” The document, obtained by media including Bloomberg and non-governmental organizations, proposes that the global deal being negotiated in Denmark’s capital limits warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) since industrialization began, a goal shared by many corporations and trade groups. The proposal is garnering so much attention in part because Denmark is hosting the climate negotiations, giving it oversight of the final text of a deal, said David Waskow , climate-change program director of Oxfam America. ‘Profoundly Destructive’ The UN chief played down its importance compared with proposals that are officially admitted to negotiating tables. “This was an informal paper ahead of the conference given to a number of people for the purposes of consultations,” de Boer said in his statement. “The only formal texts in the UN process are the ones tabled by the chairs of this Copenhagen conference at the behest of the parties.” The draft was circulated among envoys from the U.S., the U.K. and Denmark, The Guardian newspaper reported . Lumumba Di-Aping, a Sudanese envoy who speaks for 130 developing nations and China, criticized the proposal and said the UNFCCC is the only legitimate forum for debates. “The proposal makes itself a laughing stock,” Quamrul Chowdhury , a Bangladeshi delegate said today in an interview. The behavior of the Danish hosts is “funny” and their text doesn’t include the “massive public feeling” in poorer nations, he said. Su Wei , China’s lead negotiator, said he hadn’t seen the Danish document. Climate Aid “The draft Copenhagen agreement is profoundly destructive — it violates the principles of the UN negotiations,” Andy Atkins , executive director of Friends of the Earth, said in an e-mailed statement. “The Danes holding secret back-room meetings with a few select countries is also deeply disappointing.” Connie Hedegaard , the Danish minister who’s chairwoman of the talks, on Dec. 7 denied there was a specific proposal for the final outcome of the meeting. “There isn’t one text; there are lots of different issues circulating where we try to consult with different parties,” Hedegaard said. “The draft text that might eventually be accepted here is for a later stage.” The proposal also includes provisions for developed nations to channel $10 billion a year for the next three years to help developing nations cope with the immediate effects of climate change and early steps to bring down their emissions. Bangladesh’s Chowdhury said his country alone will need $9 billion a year to build sea defenses, protect farmland and take efforts to lower emissions. Bangladesh is classed by the UN as a least-developed country, or LDC, and Chowdhury coordinates the position on finance and adaptation of the 49 LDCs. “It’s not even inadequate, it’s minuscule,” Chowdhury said of the $10 billion. “We will require $9 billion per annum. There are 49 least-developed countries. What happens to the rest of them?” Developed countries would inscribe absolute emissions- reduction pledges in one annex, and developing nations would lay out their actions and the “emissions outcome expected” from their policies. “I think they’ve looked too much toward the U.S. and too little toward what the developing countries were wanting to see and that was a big tactical mistake,” Carstensen told Bloomberg Television. “I think they have now gotten the signal from developing countries that we want to see something different.” ‘A Distraction’ Envoys at the UN talks are discussing how to extend or replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that limits emissions in 37 developed nations. Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen has said he wants leaders to reach a “strong political agreement” by the end of the summit on Dec. 18, when U.S. President Barack Obama and U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown come to Copenhagen. “The Rasmussen text is a distraction,” Martin Kaiser , Greenpeace International climate political adviser, said in an e-mail. “Rasmussen needs to get serious and focus on solving the roadblocks that have been caused by the industrialized countries refusing to agree on deep cuts in emissions, long-term finance for the developing world and a legally binding outcome in Copenhagen,” Kaiser said. To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in Copenhagen via amorales2@bloomberg.net Kim Chipman in Copenhagen via Kchipman@bloomberg.net .

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NetShelter Technology Media Appoints Mike Farrow as Chief Financial Officer

December 1, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwire – December 1, 2009) – NetShelter Technology Media, the world’s largest technology media network, today announced that Mike Farrow has joined the company as Chief Financial Officer bringing over 20 years of experience to the position. Reporting to Peyman Nilforoush, NetShelter’s co-founder and CEO, Mr. Farrow will be responsible for scaling up financial operations for the fast growing company and will identify and analyze future growth opportunities. Prior to joining NetShelter, Mr. Farrow had been CFO for Jumpstart Automotive Media since 2007. During his tenure, Jumpstart’s revenue grew by over 25% and the company added several key publishers. Mr. Farrow was with EarthLink from 2001 to 2007 as Director, Finance and as Senior Director, Financial Planning and Analysis. He was responsible for financial reporting and forecasting the company’s internet access products, representing over $1 billion in annual revenue. As part of EarthLink, Mr. Farrow was

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Linda R. Monk, J.D.: We the Populists: How to Make Taxpayer Funded Bailouts Toxic

November 20, 2009

Those creative folks at SEIU (Service Employees International Union) have done it again. They are flooding the switchboards at Goldman Sachs, telling them that union workers are tired of bailing out the companies that are eliminating American jobs. Want to join in the fun? Call Goldman’s executive offices at (212) 902-1000, and tell them that nobody makes big profits at public expense while 10.2 percent of Americans are unemployed. The idea here is to make the “transaction costs,” as business people say, of using public dollars so high that Wall Street firms will think twice before feeding at the public trough again. Better to face their peers at Deustche Bank, ING, and Societe Internationale before pulling a switcheroo on the American taxpayer — begging with one hand and skimming with the other. Being publicly shamed can be a deterrent, especially when your nose is rubbed in it. Oh dear, but then we’ll be accused of being “populists.” Have you noticed how “populism” has become the dirty word du jour? As though what the people think is irrelevant, or even worse, stupid? Check how patronizing the pundits are when they use the term. Populism in my history books was a good thing, started in the late 1800s when a Kansan named Mary Lease reputedly urged farmers to “raise less corn and more hell.” She helped lead a movement to fight back against the concentrated economic interests that were destroying the quality of life of the average American–most of whom were farmers. Her motto? “Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street.” Sounds as relevant today as it was more than a century ago. Unfortunately, the populist movement has often been portrayed as synonymous with racism and nativism, as though other political groups in America at that time were not infected with the same biases. They were. Yet it is only in a politics where the overall good of the people counts for something that the social fabric will stay strong. Once it unravels, the only other option is revolution. That reminds me of those greatest populists of all time, the framers of the American Constitution. We tend to forget this, but according to Professor Akhil Reed Amar of Yale Law School, the ratification of the Constitution was “the most . . . populist event the Earth had ever seen.” Funny how those words “We the People” keep recurring in American history. Sometimes, a little pitchfork-waving is for the common good.

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New York Terror-Suspect Trial Plan a `Mistake,’ Former Mayor Giuliani Says

November 15, 2009

By Alan Bjerga Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) — The Obama administration’s decision to try five Sept. 11 suspects in federal court in Manhattan is a “mistake” that’s inappropriate for combating terrorism, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said. Giuliani said moving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , the self- proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and four others from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to New York for civilian trials will create additional costs and security concerns for the city. The White House plan is politically motivated, said Giuliani, New York’s mayor during the attacks, in interviews on “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union.” The Democratic administration’s plan, announced by Attorney General Eric Holder , marks a shift from the Republican Bush administration’s anti-terrorism strategy. Bush officials created military tribunals for the Guantanamo Bay prisoners, a process that was criticized by Democrats. Obama also is moving to close the prison in Cuba and relocate the detainees. The decision of the Obama White House shows that “both in substance and reality, the war on terror in their point of view is over,” Giuliani told Fox. “There seems to be an over- concern with the rights of terrorists and a lack of concern with the rights of the public.” White House senior adviser David Axelrod , speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” today, defended the decision, saying that “we believe that these folks should be tried in New York City, as you say near where their heinous acts were conducted, in full view in our court system.” Strength, Not Fear The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy , said Manhattan trials show the U.S. “acts out of strength, not out of fear.” “We’re the most powerful nation on Earth,” the Vermont Democrat said today in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. “We have a judicial system that’s the envy of the world. Let’s show the world that we can use that power.” The Sept. 11 attacks killed almost 3,000 people in New York, at the Pentagon outside Washington and in the crash of one airliner in Pennsylvania. To be tried along with Mohammed are his alleged co-conspirators: Walid Bin Attash , Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi . The five who are to be tried in New York have been accused by the U.S. of conspiring to finance, train and direct the 19 hijackers who seized four airliners used in the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon. 1993 Bombing Major terror trials in New York included that of Ramzi Yousef , who was convicted of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Giuliani, who also was mayor during that trial, said the new trials will cost “millions and millions of dollars.” “Anyone that tells you this doesn’t create additional security problems, of course, isn’t telling you the truth,” he told CNN. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, Giuliani’s successor, said in a statement he supports Obama’s decision and has “great confidence” the New York Police Department and federal authorities “will handle security expertly.” Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP. To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Bjerga in Washington at abjerga@bloomberg.net .

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Sony’s `2012′ Is Top Weekend Movie in U.S., With $65 Million Ticket Sales

November 15, 2009

By Inyoung Hwang and Sarah Rabil Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) — “2012,” the doomsday thriller about the destruction of earth, opened as the top film in U.S. and Canadian theaters this weekend with ticket sales of $65 million for Sony Corp. Last weekend’s No. 1 movie, “A Christmas Carol,” fell to second place with $22.3 million for Walt Disney Co. , researcher Hollywood.com Box-Office said today in an e-mailed statement. “2012,” from the director of “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow,” is Sony’s eighth top debut this year. The company ranks third among the six major studios in U.S. ticket sales this year with $1.23 billion as of Nov. 8, according to researcher Box Office Mojo . The film, starring John Cusack , focuses on a global cataclysm hitting the Earth in 2012, the end-date of the Mayan calendar. “A Christmas Carol,” a 3-D adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic, features the voice of Jim Carrey in multiple roles including Ebenezer Scrooge. To contact the reporters on this story: Inyoung Hwang in New York at ihwang7@bloomberg.net ; Sarah Rabil in New York at srabil@bloomberg.net .

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Video: Sachs Discusses Economic Recovery, Labor Market: Video

November 13, 2009

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) — Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, talks with Bloomberg’s Carol Massar and Erik Schatzker about the outlook for the economy and the need to improve the skills and education of U.S. workers. (This is an excerpt of the full interview. Source: Bloomberg)

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Nissan Consults Lawyers, Scores `Minor Miracle’ With Unclaimed Leaf Name

October 30, 2009

By Kae Inoue, Makiko Kitamura and Yuki Hagiwara Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) — After Nissan Motor Co. tackled technical restrictions on its first electric car involving range, battery life and temperature fluctuations, it still had to come up with a name. Choosing ‘Leaf’ wasn’t easy. Before settling on names for new models the carmaker consults lawyers in as many as 200 countries or territories, including the Canary Islands, to make sure candidates aren’t trademarked or considered offensive in local languages. “It was a minor miracle that the name was cleared,” said Kozue Nakayama , Nissan’s head of brand management. “We go through a vetting process to avoid words that have negative connotations or links to sex and violence.” When carmakers come up with a possible hit name, they often trademark it regardless of whether an applicable model is in the works. Nissan has spent more than 500 billion yen ($5.5 billion) developing electric cars to compete with Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius and Honda Motor Co. ’s Insight hybrids. The Yokohama-based automaker also had to consider the more than 1,000 team members who have been involved in the project and wanted a say, according to Nakayama. At Nissan’s annual shareholders meeting in June, Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn was pressed to explain why no name had been announced yet. “When you name a child, isn’t it often the case that in addition to the parents, the grandparents also weigh in?” Ghosn said at the meeting, according to Nakayama. “Please understand that there are so many of us with strong feelings.” “Leaf” was chosen since a plant, which converts carbon dioxide into oxygen during photosynthesis, is the “ultimate energy source” and is easily understood across cultures, Nakayama said. Phaeton, Qashqai Some names can have unintended connotations. When Volkswagen AG called its first luxury car bearing the company’s brand “Phaeton” after the son of Helios, the Greek sun god, analysts pointed out that in mythology, the boy was killed for driving his father’s chariot too close to the earth. The model subsequently failed to meet sales forecasts. Nissan drew from its own “piggy bank” of names in rechristening its Qashqai sport-utility vehicle “Dualis” for the Japan market, when the model went on sale in May 2007, Nakayama said. Qashqai, which refers to a tribe of people in Iran, can be mistaken for the question “Is it cash?” in Japanese and is difficult to pronounce, she said. Nissan shares rose 4.8 percent to close at 672 yen in Tokyo. ‘Naked,’ ‘Bongo Friendee’ When Honda renamed the Fit compact for markets outside Japan in 2002, it decided on “Jazz,” which was originally trademarked in 1986 for possible use for a 50cc motorcycle, according to the company. “Japanese model names have often been amusing to non- Japanese,” said Ashvin Chotai , managing director of Intelligence Automotive Asia, citing names such as Daihatsu Motor Co. ’s “Naked” minicar, Mazda Motor Corp. ’s “Bongo Friendee” van and Isuzu Motors Ltd. ’s “Big Horn” sport- utility vehicle. Trademarks explain why many car names contain X’s, Z’s and acronyms, as most everyday words are already reserved, Nissan’s Nakayama said. The Leaf is powered by lithium-ion batteries and has a range of 100 miles on a full charge. It will go on sale in Japan, Europe and the U.S. next year, according to Nissan. The carmaker expects at least 20,000 U.S. orders for the model by the time deliveries begin by the end of 2010. Staking Its Future “Nissan is staking its future on the Leaf, and its name must match up with consumers’ needs and their subconscious,” said Tatsuya Mizuno , director of Mizuno Credit Advisory in Tokyo. In addition to Toyota and Honda’s hybrids, it will compete against General Motors Co. ’s Chevrolet Volt, which will debut by late 2010. Stricter emissions regulations are spurring introductions of electric cars. Starting with 2012 models, California state law requires 3 percent of vehicles sold over a three-year period to be so-called “zero-emission vehicles.” Sometimes, top executives get directly involved in the naming process. That was the case with Toyota’s new Lexus LFA , a $375,000 “supercar” unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show last week. LFA stands for Lexus F-series Apex, with the F referring to the Fuji Speedway racetrack. That F was suggested by Toyota’s President Akio Toyoda , a racing fan, during his days as executive vice president, according to the company. ‘Good Omen’ Suzuki Motor Corp. ’s Chairman Osamu Suzuki played a role in naming the WagonR, the company’s first wagon-style vehicle, which was first sold in 1993 and ranked as Japan’s best-selling car last year. “R” is pronounced “AH-ru” in Japanese, which sounds like the word for “we have.” “Suzuki has sedans. We have sedans, but we now also have wagons, so I thought we could just call it WagonR,” Suzuki wrote in his 2009 autobiography. Hamamatsu, Japan-based Suzuki now plans to enter the mid- size sedan market in the U.S. with its “Kizashi” model. The name means “good omen,” which the company hopes the new challenge will be for Suzuki, spokesman Takuma Mizuyoshi said. “Names don’t make or break a car’s success,” analyst Mizuno said. “But they can certainly symbolize a company’s risk-taking attitude.” For Related News and Information: Auto news: NI AUT Top transport stories: TRNT Stories about Japanese automakers: TNI JAPAN AUT Most-read auto stories in the past week: MNI AUT 1W Automaker earnings stories: TNI ERN AUT

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NASA Launches Shuttle Replacement Rocket Amid Questions on Mission’s Need

October 28, 2009

By Ryan Flinn Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) — The world’s largest rocket, designed to launch the replacement for NASA’s space shuttle, blasted off in a flight test from Florida today. The 327-foot (100-meter) rocket, Ares I-X, weighing 1.8 million pounds (816,500 kilograms), lifted off at 11:30 a.m. from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after wind and clouds caused NASA to scrub the launch yesterday. The booster will deploy parachutes after separating about 25 miles (40 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface from the mock upper stage crew module and will land in the Atlantic Ocean, where it will be recovered for analysis, NASA said . The total duration of the flight is about six minutes. Ares I is part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Constellation project, which aims to return humans to the moon by 2020 with the goal of an eventual trip to Mars. Ares I will carry Orion , the six-person craft that will bring astronauts to the International Space Station, while Ares V will boost the four-person Altair Lunar Lander into space. Last week, an independent committee established by President Barack Obama to study NASA’s space plans concluded that without increasing the agency’s budget by about $3 billion annually, it can’t adequately conduct “meaningful human exploration” of space, according to a summary of its findings. ‘Unsustainable Trajectory’ “The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory,” the committee said in the summary. “It is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources.” The committee laid out at least five alternatives that suggest using modified commercial rockets to bring crews to low- Earth orbit, instead of current plans to use Ares I for such missions. “While this presents some risk, it could provide an earlier capability at lower initial and lifecycle costs than government could achieve” with developing its own launch vehicle, such as the Ares I and Orion, the committee said. The Ares launch vehicles are named for the Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Mars. The Constellation project emerged following the 2003 loss of the shuttle Columbia. That ship was destroyed and its crew perished as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere after suffering damage from a falling piece of insulation during its launch. The first space shuttle, Columbia, was launched in 1981. Russia, India and China are planning their own lunar missions. Russia and India agreed in 2007 to send an unmanned mission to the moon and build a laboratory on the lunar surface. China has sent astronauts into space and is aiming to land a man on the moon by 2020. To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Flinn in San Francisco at rflinn@bloomberg.net .

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Hasselhoff, Emin, Moss Feast at New London Soho Eatery Hix: Richard Vines

October 20, 2009

By Richard Vines Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) — David Hasselhoff is dining in the corner, and he’s not the only actor around. James Nesbitt is in the bar with the celebrity hairdresser Nicky Clarke . The artist Tracey Emin and model Kate Moss have already been in, as have the rock musicians Nick Cave and Bobby Gillespie . When London chef Mark Hix opens a restaurant, the stars come out, as do the critics and the bloggers, whose presence is signaled by the flash photography that makes them the paparazzi of the plate. Young British artists also abound. That mobile above the bar, of dead fish in Perspex coffins, is by Hix’s friend Damien Hirst . The dangling Fray Bentos tins are by Sarah Lucas and there are works by Miranda Donovan, Gary Webb and Abigail Fallis. The neon sign that points to “Mark’s” club downstairs is by Tim Noble and Sue Webster. As if any confirmation of the chef’s cultural connections were needed, a new Emin neon sign spelling out HIX hung over Hix’s packed pop-up restaurant at the Frieze Art Fair and, yes, Emin sat below it having lunch with friends on Saturday. Such celebrity connections are a double-edged sword. One blogger has repeatedly criticized Hix for being too focused on his mates, and not all the critics are fans. When Hix Oyster & Chop House opened in 2008, Marina O’Loughlin of Metro wrote, “Unless you’re a known face or pal of the management, you’re likely to feel as though you’re gate-crashing a cliquey party.” Over lunch at Hix, which opened in Soho at the start of this month, Hix shakes his head when he recalls the early days of the Chop House, near Smithfield Market. Table Traffic “The service was a bit of a car crash,” he says. “I hadn’t worked with a lot of the staff and they didn’t know what I was trying to achieve. The food was fine but getting it to the table was the problem. The difference now is that people have been with me for a while and things are much smoother.” To the question of how many people are working in Hix, the chef gives a two-word answer meaning he’s not entirely certain. (The first word has four letters and the second is “knows.”) The menu is typically Hix, which is to say it combines traditional English options such as oysters or partridge with dishes that are not so familiar. Cod’s tongues with girolles anyone? There’s also a curry of monkfish cheek with lobster. “I always like to have a curry of some description on the menu,” says Hix, who ate at Tayyabs — where he enjoyed a dark prawn curry — while developing the spicing for his sauces. “Everyone loves a curry. We sell loads. Over the years, you develop the mixing of the spices. This one is quite mild.” The menu changes twice a day, so you can’t be sure what might turn up at any particular service. Seashore Salad My favorite starters over three meals include: Heaven and Earth, which is a Cumbrian black pudding on crushed potatoes and apples; an intense Cornish fish soup; wild duck on toast with salsify and elderberries, which features sliced meat atop a liver pate; and a seashore salad of samphire scallops, mussels, cockles and oysters that’s as powerful as Heston Blumenthal’s Sound of the Sea dish; and those cod tongues. Among the main courses, the deep-fried pollock comes in the lightest, crispiest of batters and is served with mushy peas (well, they are actually crushed and a little more Lyme Regis than Leeds) with Sarson’s vinegar on the side. There’s also a hearty salt-marsh mutton, ale and oyster pie (15.50 pounds). The only dish that hasn’t worked — and I’ve tried it twice — is the curry. The sauce was watery and the fish is tough. Starters are mostly in the range of 7-9 pounds, most mains are 15-25 pounds and desserts are about 7 pounds. But your bill may be higher than you expect if you get enticed by the cocktails or become over-familiar with the wine list. Secret Weapon Don’t expect Hix to be cooking for you. He’s working the room. Kevin Gratton, formerly of Le Caprice, is in the kitchen. The other secret weapon is Nick Strangeway — ex-mixer at Hawksmoor — who has created an epic cocktail list for the clubby basement bar. Be prepared for noise. My decibel counter headed past 80 — the sound of a freight train — but then I was dining with the chef Richard Corrigan and the food writer Xanthe Clay and we were a tad animated. What’s the difference between Hix and the Chop House? “Not much,” Hix says. “The pricing’s much the same and there’s only so much you can change for food. We’re trying to do a bit more fish here but the philosophy is the same: using good, seasonal ingredients and not messing about with them.” Hix, 66-70 Brewer Street, London, W1F 9TR. Information: +44-20- 7292-3518 or http://www.restaurantsetcltd.co.uk/markhix . ( Richard Vines is the chief food critic for Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed are his own.) To contact the writer on the story: Richard Vines in London at rvines@bloomberg.net .

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Mars Caves May Hold Secret to Life on Planet, Shelter Future Explorers

October 20, 2009

By Ryan Flinn Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) — Scientists have discovered a series of caves on Mars that might provide shelter to future explorers and may hold evidence of life, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The caves were probably formed when lava cooled and solidified on top of channels created during ancient volcanic eruptions, making tunnels, said a statement today from the USGS. The formations may hold evidence of microbial life that would have been destroyed or buried on the surface of the planet, said Glen Cushing, a USGS physicist who made the discovery. “There’s even been speculation that lava tubes could be sealed and pressured to create a habitat for long term use,” said Cushing in a telephone interview from Portland, Oregon. “That’s in the pretty far distant future, but it’s seems like a fairly reasonable prospect once we do get to that level.” NASA is currently planning to return humans to the moon by 2020 as a step toward an eventual manned mission to Mars. Cushing, 39, discovered the caves by studying images of grooves on the planet’s surface, some longer than 100 kilometers (62 miles), with depressions he said are skylight entrances into the tunnels. While every planetary body likely has some sort of cave system, the eight examples found on Mars are the first to be discovered off of Earth, he said. “It’s not surprising to find them, and we figure they almost certainly had to be there, we just hadn’t located them yet,” he said. The depressions were detected on high-resolution images beamed back from orbiting satellites. “By finding caves on Mars, USGS scientists have demonstrated once again that real, cutting-edge science is more exciting than the best science fiction ever written,” U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in the statement. To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Flinn in San Francisco at rflinn@bloomberg.net .

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Saturn’s Largest Ring Found by Scientists and NASA Telescope

October 8, 2009

By Brian Lysaght Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) — Scientists using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered the largest known ring around Saturn. The nearly invisible sphere is made of ice and dust particles and lies at the outer edge of Saturn’s system, between 3.7 million miles (6 million kilometers) and 8.1 million miles from the planet, according to a statement on NASA’s Web site . Astronomers Anne Verbiscer and Michael Skrutskie of the University of Virginia and Douglas Hamilton of the University of Maryland, used the Spitzer telescope to investigate whether Saturn moon Phoebe may be circling the planet in a belt of dust. Phoebe, one of Saturn’s most-distant moons, orbits within the newly found ring and may be the source of its material, the space agency said. A NASA illustration shows Saturn as a small dot surrounded by the massive ring, which has a diameter equal to 300 Saturns lined up side by side. Spitzer’s infrared camera spotted the glow of the band’s cool dust. The Spitzer telescope, launched in 2003, is currently 66 million miles from Earth in orbit around the sun. A paper about the discovery by Verbiscer, Hamilton and Michael Skrutskie, will be published online tomorrow by the journal Nature . Saturn, named for the Roman god of agriculture, is the second-largest planet in the solar system after Jupiter and is the sixth planet from the Sun. Its system of rings is made up of ice, rocky debris and dust. Its mass is 95 times that of the Earth. To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Lysaght in London at blysaght@bloomberg.net .

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Stocks in U.S. Rally, Oil, Gold Advance as Dollar Drops; Wells Fargo Jumps

October 5, 2009

By Elizabeth Stanton and Margot Habiby Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks rose, rebounding from the first two-week decline since July, as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. recommended large banks and a report showed service industries returned to growth after 11 months of contraction. Gold and oil advanced as the dollar weakened. Wells Fargo & Co. rallied 6.9 percent and JPMorgan Chase & Co. added 4.6 percent as Goldman Sachs said big banks will outperform regional lenders. Nordstrom Inc. and Limited Brands Inc. climbed at least 7.7 percent after the Institute for Supply Management’s gauge of non-manufacturing businesses topped estimates. Brocade Communications Systems Inc. jumped 19 percent, the most in seven weeks, on takeover speculation. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 1.5 percent to 1,040.46 at 4:39 p.m. in New York, its steepest gain in a week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 112.08 points, or 1.2 percent, to 9,599.75. Europe’s benchmark index advanced 0.9 percent, while Asia’s slipped 0.7 percent. Seven stocks rose for each that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. “Third-quarter earnings season is going to be pretty strong,” said Noman Ali , part of a group that manages $20 billion in Toronto for MFC Global Investment Management. “Analysts are way too conservative coming out of recessions. Estimates will have to move higher because actual earnings will come in better than expected.” The S&P 500 surged 32 percent in the past two quarters amid expectations the worst of the global recession is over. Lower- than-forecast data on manufacturing and jobs last week spurred concern the seven-month rally may have outpaced the prospects for earnings growth. New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini said Oct. 3 that “markets have gone up too much, too soon, too fast.” Alcoa, Gold Alcoa is scheduled to release third-quarter results on Oct. 7, the first company in the Dow average to report earnings. Analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg predict companies will report a ninth straight quarter of declining profits before returning to growth in the final three months of the year. Gold futures touched the highest price in more than a week as the dollar weakened, boosting the appeal of the precious metal as an alternative investment. Gold has gained 15 percent this year, while the dollar declined 5.7 percent. Gold futures for December delivery climbed $13.50, or 1.3 percent, to $1,017.80 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Comex division, the highest settlement price for a most-active contract since Sept. 16. Earlier, the metal reached $1,018.90, the highest price since Sept. 24. Futures reached $1,033.90 on March 17, 2008, the all-time high in New York. In London, gold for immediate delivery climbed $13.80, or 1.4 percent, to $1,016.60 an ounce at 7:06 p.m. local time. Oil, Gas Rise Crude oil rose after the stock market climbed and the dollar fell. Oil for November delivery climbed 46 cents to settle at $70.41 a barrel at 2:50 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures have traded between $65.05 and $75 since Aug. 1. Prices have gained 58 percent this year. Natural gas increased above $5 per million British thermal units for the first time in almost nine months as below-normal temperatures forecast for the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. will lift heating-fuel demand. Cold weather will advance into the Midwest and be in place through at least Oct. 14, according to a six-to-10-day outlook from MDA Federal Inc.’s EarthSat Energy Weather of Rockville, Maryland. Gas demand is highest in the winter, when fuel use exceeds production and imports. About 72 percent of Midwest households rely on gas for heating. Natural gas for November delivery rose 26.9 cents, or 5.7 percent, to settle at $4.987 per million Btu at 2:52 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gas earlier touched $5.008, the highest intraday price since Jan. 15. Dollar Declines The dollar declined against the euro as stocks rose after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. recommended large banks and a report showed U.S. service industries grew, spurring investors to buy riskier assets at the expense of the greenback. The dollar slid 0.5 percent to $1.4655 per euro at 3:10 p.m. in New York, from $1.4576 on Oct. 2. It fell to a one-year low of $1.4844 on Sept. 23. The yen declined 0.2 percent to 131.17 per euro, from 130.90, and increased 0.3 percent to 89.51 per dollar, from 89.81 at the end of last week. Treasuries were little changed as the increase in stocks tempered expectations for demand at this week’s auction of $78 billion in notes and bonds. The Treasury’s sale of $7 billion of 10-year inflation- protected notes today drew a yield of 1.51 percent, compared with a forecast of 1.56 percent in a Bloomberg News survey of seven of the Fed’s primary dealers. The bid-to-cover ratio, which gauges investor demand by comparing total bids with the amount of securities offered, was the most since January 1999. The benchmark 10-year note yielded 3.21 percent at 2:02 p.m. in New York, according to BGCantor Market Data. The 3.625 percent security maturing in August 2019 was at 103 14/32. To contact the reporters on this story: Elizabeth Stanton in New York at estanton@bloomberg.net ; Margot Habiby in Dallas at mhabiby@bloomberg.net .

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Rescuers Say Chance of Finding Sumatra Earthquake Survivors `Almost Zero’

October 3, 2009

By Soraya Permatasari Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) — The chance of finding any survivors among the thousands of people buried under collapsed buildings by the earthquake that devastated the Indonesian town of Padang on Sumatra’s west coast is “almost zero,” the national search and rescue agency said. “Life detectors, which detect heartbeat, have shown there isn’t anyone alive underneath the rubble of most high-rise buildings in Padang,” Gagah Prakoso, spokesman for the Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency , said yesterday, three days after the quake, at an operations center in the city. “We have used detectors, dogs, even bare hands, every means possible to search for any survivors, but I have to say that the chance is almost zero by now.” The death toll from the 7.6-magitude temblor that leveled homes, mosques and hotels in the coastal city of about 800,000 was 496 people as of yesterday, Priyadi Kardono, a spokesman at the National Disaster Management Agency in Jakarta, said by phone. “Many thousands more” are trapped under crushed buildings, the United Nations said in a statement on its Web site. The Red Cross estimated more than 2,000 may have died, according to Agence France-Presse. Governments around the world have provided money and other aid such as medicine, tents, food and search teams with sniffer dogs. Still, time, weather and the number of destroyed buildings ensure the death toll will rise significantly. “Realistically it is very, very difficult for anyone to still be alive after being trapped without water and food under the rubble for so long,” Prakoso said. Decomposing Bodies There were 125 people, including guests and participants in two seminars, staying at the 140-room Ambacang hotel when it was destroyed in the earthquake, Sarana Aji, the hotel’s general manager, said in an interview in Padang. Teams have recovered 29 bodies from the hotel, he said. One survivor was rescued Oct. 2, he said. The smell of decomposing bodies was strong near what used to be the swimming pool on the Ambacang’s second floor, now lying shattered on the ground. Five excavating machines moved chunks of broken concrete and steel reinforcing bar that used to form the floors and walls of the destroyed building. “I urge everyone to accept the possibility that the trapped victims may not survive,” Aji said. “Our focus remains to find survivors, though the chance is getting slim.” Elsewhere in Padang, stores and small restaurants began to resume operations, providing much needed service in the devastated town that has been paralyzed. Some hotels and hospitals were running on electricity provided by their own generators, as power in the city was still unavailable. Long queues formed at filling stations as people hoped to obtain scarce gasoline. ‘The Earth Shook Violently’ Nursim Salam, 55, a teacher at LBA Lia school in Padang, was trapped underneath the collapsed school for three hours. “The earth shook violently,” Salam said in an interview. “I quickly told my students to run out of the building when pieces of brick walls started to crumble, but it was too late. There was a loud noise, then the roof collapsed. Everything was dark and it was difficult to breathe.” Salam and four students were on the second floor of the school when the building collapsed. “We had to crawl from one empty space to another,” Salam said. “Hours later I saw a blinking light coming from the other side so I made my way there and saw someone holding a cell phone. It was a student from another class. With the help from the cell-phone light, we made our way down slowly to the lobby because we were on the second floor, but after everything collapsed we were on the ground.” Doctors Struggle “Eventually we heard some people outside and screamed for help. They gave us drinks and a bit of food and stayed with us until we were rescued about one hour later. My throat feels so dry, even now I have to keep drinking or it gets very dry. It could be the dust.” Doctors trying to treat hundreds of injured survivors are running out of medicine, and damage to hospitals has left them without sufficient space to operate. At the M Jamil Hospital, the biggest public hospital in Padang, doctors have been overwhelmed by critically injured people and the bodies of those who didn’t survive. “These bodies are not so easy to identify because they aren’t complete,” Asril Zahari, 57, the hospital’s head medical coordinator, said Oct. 2. “We received 92 of them in total. Most of them were claimed by their families already except for these 10. They are from the Ambacang hotel and Aldira Motor,” he said, referring to an auto showroom in the town. International Aid “We treated 250 patients and operated on 120 of them,” Zahari said. “Many of them suffered from broken bones and head injuries. Initially we had enough supplies but there are just too many patients. We are running out of injection liquid, antibiotics, saline drips. Thank God, though, so far I can say that most patients have received treatment.” Zahari, who lost an uncle in the quake, said his family is sleeping in the backyard at night because their home collapsed. The European Commission has provided 3 million euros ($4.4 million), EC President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said in a press statement. The U.S. has provided $300,000 in assistance to Indonesia and set aside an additional $3 million to be used once needs are assessed. The U.S. is also sending a disaster-response team. It’s the second earthquake to cause fatalities in Indonesia in less than a month after a magnitude-7 temblor south of Java on Sept. 2 left 82 people dead. A tsunami generated by a magnitude-9.1 earthquake off northern Sumatra in December 2004 left about 220,000 people dead or missing in 12 countries around the Indian Ocean. To contact the reporters on this story: Soraya Permatasari at soraya@bloomberg.net

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Stephen Viscusi: In a JOBLESS Recovery, Think ‘Green Jobs’…to Get Back in the Black.

September 25, 2009

In the 90′s the expression “Think Outside the box” was the mantra. It followed us in to the new millennium. However in 2009 and 2010, less new jobs will be created. So you can think “outside the box” all you want, but if you don’t have a job you might end up living in a box! Everyone I talk to today tells me the same thing, “I have sent out hundreds of resumes, and I don’t even get a single call”. Why? Part of the answer is that search engines–Monster, The Ladders, CareerBuilder and such… have redefined the way we find jobs, just like cable TV has redefined what we watch, and how we get our news, and the i-Pod, has redefined how we get our music, Starbuck’s our coffee. People, who tell me they are sending out resumes and not getting calls, are spinning their wheels, not because they are not qualified, or too old or too expensive, and it is not because they are not thinking “outside the box”, to the contrary, they may be thinking too far outside the box. Maybe the job you in your head, the one you want, simply does not exist anymore. Figure out what is new in our culture, and business, and create a resume to reflect that industry, hence a job. “Sell yourself”, to everyone and anyone. If you learn to “sell” -you will never starve. Some people think of it as a dirty word. The problem is that those of you who are “unemployed” get too much advice; hear too many theories on resumes and cover letters, and what typeface to use, regular mail vs… E-mail. My goodness everything thinks they have the answer for you, don’t they? Guess what? – Each job that you are applying for requires a different resume, tailored just for that job. Usually not completely rewritten, just a change in the “objective”, or a word or two that copies the “vocabulary” of the company you are applying too. You can take the “vernacular” of that company, directly from a company’s website. This will separate your resume, from the thousands of other resumes coming in the door, that have not been “customized” (www.bulletproofyourresume.com) Just pick two key of what you feel are the most important , or “key” words, that it will pick up. Not the “kitchen sink” theory, of Key Words” that everyone seems to be so high on. Here is my ideas…”create” a job that a company may not know it needs, and write directly to the President of the company. For instance, that HOT title today is “Sustainability”. Companies have a Chief Sustainability Officer. I prefer the title I created: the Chief Green Officer (CGO) that’s the executive who initiates corporations “green” efforts with its customers, vendors and the public. Never heard of such of job? Well 10 years ago, who heard of a CMO (Chief Marketing Officer)? I made up the “CGO” but believe me, someone will steal the idea and soon enough you will see this position in big companies. Even President Obama “had” a Green Jobs Czar–and he recently got the ax, in part because of Glenn Beck– so there’s one possible opening right there. Send your resume to the President! Green is here to stay. It’s not like the “paperless” office we have been hearing about for years, but everyone I know is still drowning in paper! Companies, big and small… are busy formulating their plans to be sustainable or “green”. Companies who have a “green agenda” will save money, which saves jobs. It’s more then recycling; it’s what you buy, what you sell to your customers and how you treat the earth. Every company needs or will need a “green” point person. How cool to be the first in a position that never existed before. It’s not just good for a company’s image- it’s good for the bottom line. I don’t mean the obvious things like environmental engines, architect and interior designers; the “build green” or industrial designers that think green to create new products. I mean every company needs a “green conscience”. An advocate for their green conscience. To review; what they are buying from their vendors and what are they providing for there customers? Printing e-mails not at a “green” company you’re not! Bottled water? Coffee cups? Who is catching all this wastefulness? The CGO of course! Do you know at my company our CGO will not let us re-order business cards! Can you imagine? Bring a lunch box, not bags- recycled is not good enough. It’s a matter of going a step further. Turn off the computers at night. Well, pull out your resume right now and re-write it to reflect the needs of a “green” manager for a company. Don’t worry about not having the experience. No one else does either, so you are all equal, at least for the time being. It’s new. It’s like Starbuck’s or the i Phone; no one knew they needed it, until it was created. Be the first to have this type of job, be “green” in a green job–I dare you. Write your own job description, and then create the resume to match it, and explain to a company why they need such a job. When the government started pouring money into green jobs, and when there is a government “Czar” of anything…jobs follow. (How did we ever end up with a Russian name for an emperor as part of an American nickname for a Presidential post?). Green means lean! Green means a company cares about the future- and its image. The future means we care about children, and caring about children is absolutely American. If you don’t think that it’s a priority in our culture, look in your closet and think how many 12 year old Chinese children it took to make those running shoes in your closet, or some of those clothes you may be wearing. A Chief Green Officer is the moral backbone of an American business. All you need is a conscience, and a computer to do some search engine homework, go to Bang, Google, Ask, or Yahoo, and start to find out what green effort company’s near you are making. Start with the large companies that have a high profile and explain how they need an individual to spearhead this effort. Become the “green face” of that company. As a headhunter, author, and TV Journalist on the Green Agenda–I have filled many green jobs specific to industries that manufacture and want to “think green” and want to manufacture sustainable products. Let’s take green to the next level, and see that every company has a green bean! Your business may not be large enough to have a Chief Green Officer, but it could have a Director of Green Thinking, or a “Manager of Green or Sustainable Resources, right? Get going with that resume and let me know what you think. Oh, and please don’t “print” this article! ——————————————————————— You’re always welcome to write me with your career dilemmas, and I’ll answer you on this column. Follow me on Twitter (@WorkplaceGuru) and add me on Facebook or email me at: stephen@viscusi.com. Disclaimer: The scenarios and events portrayed in this article are products of the author’s imagination. (c) Stephen Viscusi. All rights reserved. Article can be duplicated in part of full without author’s permission. Stephen Viscusi is the author of two books about jobs and the workplace. Charles Gibson from ABC’s World News calls Viscusi, “America’s Workplace Guru”. Viscusi is a TV broadcast journalist on jobs, a headhunter and resume spin doctor. His latest book, Bulletproof Your Job: 4 Simple Strategies to Ride Out the Rough Times and Come Out On Top at Work (HarperCollins) has been published around the globe in at least 9 languages including Chinese, Korean, Spanish and Portuguese. Viscusi is also the founder of www.BulletproofYourResume.com. Viscusi’s headhunting and workplace advice is usually considered counter-intuitive to the conventional wisdom. Viscusi is not a career or life coach. To the contrary, his current book, Bulletproof Your Job has been described as the New Millennium’s The Art of War, by Sun Tzu, and that’s how Viscusi sees the workplace. He’s your workplace General. Each week, Stephen Viscusi volunteers his headhunting career advice to the world. His disciples can be celebrities, politico, world leaders, heads of industry, and some are just ordinary people who write him for advice. It’s like Tony Robbins advising Al Gore or Deepak Chopra advising Michael Jackson (wait, scratch that one). Even you can get your own advice by writing to Stephen at stephen@viscusi.com, Facebook him or Twitter him at WorkplaceGuru.

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India’s First Lunar Mission Finds Evidence of Water on Moon, Agency Says

September 24, 2009

By Alex Morales and Jay Shankar Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) — The moon is a lot wetter than we thought. That’s the conclusion of scientists who used data gathered by India’s first lunar mission to determine there may be widespread moisture locked in lunar soils. The upper few millimeters of the moon’s surface contains molecules of water, or H2O, and hydroxyl (OH) — an indication that water formation may be an ongoing process at the moon’s surface, the researchers said today in the journal Science . “When we say ‘water on the moon,’ we are not talking about lakes, oceans or even puddles,” the study’s lead author, Carle Pieters, a planetary geologist at Rhode Island’s Brown University, said. “Water on the moon means molecules of water and hydroxyl that interact with molecules of rock and dust specifically in the top millimeters of the moon’s surface.” The findings open the way for astronauts on lunar missions to harvest water from the moon’s surface, according to the paper. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration on June 18 launched two probes to search for frozen water on the moon. Discovering the substance would be like finding a goldmine, the agency said at the time, putting the cost of transporting a bottle of water to the moon at $50,000. “NASA wants to set up a permanent base on the moon, and they want to live off the land,” Colin Pillinger, professor of planetary science at the U.K.’s Open University in Milton Keynes said today in a phone interview. “To do that, they need water.” Polar Ice Pillinger, who this year co-wrote a study for NASA about extracting water and other compounds from the lunar surface, said that physical samples will be needed to prove the conclusions from today’s study, and that extracting water will be a challenge. “Technically it’s easy, but logistically it’s awfully difficult because it takes a lot of energy,” Pillinger said. “If you want a long-term lunar base, then you go to the poles,” because no refrigerator will be necessary to condense water vapor that has been boiled out of the soil, he said. Craters at the lunar poles haven’t been exposed to sunlight in billions of years and probably have temperatures of minus 328 degrees Fahrenheit (-200 degrees Celsius), according to NASA. That has led planetary scientists to theorize water ice may be present in those dark areas. As many as 770 water molecules could be present in every million molecules in the thin top layer of the moon’s soil, according to today’s paper. Brown University said in a statement the proportion could be as high as 1,000 per million. The data was gathered by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 craft. Moon’s Topsoil “The data obtained from these instruments show there is evidence of water,” S. Satish, a spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organization, said in a phone interview from Bangalore. The researchers concluded the most likely origin of the water is as a result of the so-called solar wind, laden with charged hydrogen particles, impacting with the oxygen-rich lunar soil. The discovery may add impetus to a U.S. plan to return to the moon by 2020, a goal set by former President George W. Bush. NASA said this month it needs an additional $3 billion a year to accomplish that and other agency goals. The mapper instrument, called M3, analyzed the way sunlight reflects off the lunar surface to determine the materials that constitute the soil, according to a statement from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, which participated in the study. Crashed Probe NASA’s Lunar Prospector craft in 1998 detected hydrogen near the pole, prompting speculation that water was present. A year later, the agency deliberately crashed the craft into the moon’s surface, hoping to detect water vapor in the resulting dust plume, without success. Trace amounts of water detected in rocks shipped back from the moon by Apollo missions 40 years ago were attributed to contamination from the Earth’s air because the boxes housing the samples had leaks, according to the University of Tennessee. “The isotopes of oxygen that exist on the moon are the same as those that exist on Earth, so it was difficult if not impossible to tell the difference,” Larry Taylor, a co-author of today’s paper, said in the university’s statement. “Since the early soil samples only had trace amounts of water, it was easy to make the mistake of attributing it to contamination.” Last year, researchers at Brown analyzed volcanic glasses recovered by the Apollo 15 mission, finding evidence of water, which they said must have had its origins deep inside the moon. The Indian “moon craft” was designed to orbit the moon for two years at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles). Scientists in the southern Indian city of Bangalore lost contact with it on Aug. 29 after 315 days in orbit. To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net ; Jay Shankar in Bangalore at jshankar1@bloomberg.net .

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Reverend Billy: New York’s Consumerism

August 10, 2009

Consumerism is a deadly invention that came over our American culture in the last 30 years, dating back to Ronald Reagan, but getting much worse in the Clinton and Bush eras. It’s how most of our society is organized. Our church defines Consumerism in the classic way: It is economic power of corporations converting all human activities, all the earth’s resources — everything it can find — into the market. Everything is monetized, from intimate love all the way up to full-scale war and explorations in outer space. Everything we do, everything we make, everything we dream — must make money for unseen investors. Consumerist society controls individuals through media marketing, product packaging, transportation systems to go shopping, hypnotic credit systems and so forth — until it dominates our waking hours. Consumerism is what they call a “totalizing system.” It expands outward across the landscape and simultaneously into the individual’s psyche. It must expand. It is the modern version of empire. How far have the corporations gotten? History will call this the corporate era — all policies, laws, enforcement, elections — all the functions of government are now a matter of buying and selling. However, the corporations surround their control of government with a wrap-around marketing campaign that uses as its imagery the thing they are destroying: Democracy. The average New Yorker deals with thousands of selling pitches each day, from six story high Kate Mosses down to the logos in the litter. The corporation has overwhelmed whole cultural traditions — the arts and religion and education and journalism. This “soft” side of society is now fully corporation-dependent. Anyone who opposes this take-over is called a “protester,” or “controversial.” We think we are full of energy and change because we believe the ads designed by corporate media reflect our own lives. The truth is that we are suffering a time of passive Consumerism reminiscent of American culture in the 1950′s. Everything we do in public life is thoroughly de-politicized. And yet we live in a time where we can dream of freedom from Consumerism. As we say in the church, there is “Life After Shopping!” Consumerism, based on its false idea of prosperity — imploded in 2008. We call it “The Shopocalypse.” Here is one form the downturn took in New York: The bulldozers destroying our neighborhoods suddenly ran out of gas. And now families are coming out of their homes and looking around as if a bombardment has paused. We’re talking to each other on the corner. As the gleaming buildings stand over us, half-finished and frozen in space — we look back at the Bloomberg economy standing there and feel our true feelings rise up. And in this city-wide common sense talk we rediscover our old American radicalism, a lot like the long-ago reaction to taxation without representation. It’s more obvious with the construction crane’s unmoving shadow on our street. Such events that we had normalized into our understanding of Consumerist government, like the killing of rent controls by City Council President Peter Vallone and the realtor lobby in the early 90′s — this looks like dramatic corruption now. Some of us believe that we can resist the evictions and foreclosures because of regular conversations that suddenly all New Yorkers share. I’m talking about the moral force of the grand phrase, “We wuz robbed.” All of New York’s Consumerism, whatever form it takes — from $900 baby strollers to Target crap — is fixed in place by the old corruption of real estate speculation. It’s NYC’s mother of all consumption. Land and buildings. So, will we take advantage of this current opening in the economy to re-define our relationship to real estate power, and create lease protections for home-owners and neighborhood shopkeepers? This means confronting the old idea that real estate is to New York what oil is to Texas. This fundamentalist code — what’s good for real estate is good for the city, and therefore developers should dominate our government… this old New York devil must be cast out… And so we come to our campaign slogan, “The Rise of the Fabulous 500 Neighborhoods.” Lots of our smaller communities within the bigger Gotham had good economies before Consumerism attacked with its chain stores and luxury condos. Bloomberg runs our city thinking it is his corporation, New York City, Inc. Until last year, he was leading an assault on the neighborhoods like a military operation, creating an epidemic of high-rises, evictions and homelessness. He has turned over all that is best about our city to his market transactions. Mike Bloomberg’s persona is so comically a demonstration of Consumerism, that his illegal grab for another term and his spending $100 million on it — making the mayoralty one big product that he is buying — gives us the chance to demonstrate in unforgettable fashion how our Democracy needs to resist Consumerism. Let’s preach!

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Space Shuttle Endeavour Touches Down Safely in Florida After 16-Day Flight

July 31, 2009

By Ryan Flinn July 31 (Bloomberg) — The space shuttle Endeavour and its seven-person crew landed safely in Florida today, completing a 16-day mission that included a crowded stay at the International Space Station . Endeavour touched down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at about 10:48 a.m. local time. The shuttle spent 11 days docked at the ISS, during which the crew delivered parts to the station and installed batteries and other components.

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