Thursday, December 29, 2011
Brand new island rises from Red Sea depths
(Image: NASA/Earth Observatory)
Throw away that shiny new atlas you got for Christmas - it's already out of date.
Volcanic activity in the Red Sea is causing the formation of a new island in the Zubair archipelago as lava is cooled by the surrounding seawater and solidifies. The underwater volcano responsible is located on the Red Sea Rift, where the African and Arabian tectonic plates are slowly pulling apart.
Yemeni fishermen first spotted lava spewing 30 metres into the air on 19 December and this was later confirmed by satellite observations. Ash plumes were detected by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard its Terra and Aqua satellites and NASA's Advanced Land Imager aboard its Earth Observing One satellite, which produced this image. Elevated levels of sulphur dioxide in the region were also recorded by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument aboard NASA's Aura satellite.
By 23 December, the lava mass had broken the water's surface and the new island had begun to take shape. The island is currently around 500m wide and is still growing. The question now is whether or not it has staying power. It may continue to grow significantly as volcanic activity continues, or the fragile lava mass may be broken up by the action of the sea's waves.
Whatever the outcome, volcanic activity in the Red Sea region appears to be on the rise. This is the first time the volcano has erupted in over a century and follows recent eruptions in the Afar Triangle in Eritrea and Ethiopia and the volcanic fields of southern Yemen and Saudi Arabia. In 2007, the nearby Jabal al-Tair volcanic island also erupted for the first time in over a century, killing 8 people.
Read more: "Newest Canary Island pictured rising from the deep"
Rick Perry Pushes To Break Law In Virginia To Get On Ballot
Rick Perry is demanding the laws be bent and broken to favor him rather than comply with the letter of those laws, and this of course means that as a President he will be of exactly the same mind.
By Edvard Pettersson and Michael Riley
Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Texas Governor Rick Perry is seeking a court order to stop Virginia election officials from printing or distributing primary ballots after his presidential campaign was told his name wouldn’t appear on them.
Perry, a Republican, filed an emergency motion yesterday seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent distribution of the ballots without his name. In a lawsuit filed Dec. 27 in federal court in Richmond, Perry claimed that the state’s requirement that petition circulators be eligible or registered qualified voters in Virginia violates his constitutional rights.
“Virginia ballot access rules are among the most onerous and are particularly problematic in a multicandidate election,” Ray Sullivan, a spokesman for Perry, said in a statement yesterday. “We believe that the Virginia provisions unconstitutionally restrict the rights of candidates and voters by severely restricting access to the ballot.”
The Republican Party of Virginia said Dec. 24 that Perry and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich failed to get the required signatures from 10,000 registered voters, including 400 from each of the state’s 11 congressional districts. Two other Republicans, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and U.S. Representative Ron Paul of Texas, qualified for the primary scheduled for so-called Super Tuesday on March 6.
U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. set a hearing on the motion for today at 10 a.m. in Richmond.
Ballot Requirements
Justin Riemer, a spokesman for the Virginia State Board of Elections, a defendant in the lawsuit, declined to comment yesterday on Perry’s complaint.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican, said on his blog this week that he advocates loosening the state’s ballot requirements so that candidates would need only 100 signatures from each of the state’s congressional districts.
False CFR Debate over Aviation Emissions
http://www.cfr.org/eu/debate-over-aviation-emissions/p26924
December 29, 2011
December 29, 2011
| Author: |
Toni Johnson, Senior Editor/Senior Staff Writer
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Heathrow airport, London (Eddie Keogh/Courtesy Reuters)
Starting January 1, the EU will require all international air carriers flying in and out of the airports of member states to participate in itscarbon trading regime governing greenhouse gas emissions. Last week, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg rejected a petition (AviationInternational) by a group of U.S. airlines that argued the plan to impose the scheme on non-European airlines contravened international law and impinged on the sovereignty of other nations.
What's at Stake
The move, which is expected to raise airfare and introduce a new level of economic risk (MarketWatch) for airlines due to fluctuating carbon prices, comes at a time when the airline industry is struggling to address higher fuel costs and a decreased demand for air travel. The industry forecasts significantly lower earnings in 2012 (WSJ) and possible losses of up to $8 billion if the eurozone's economic woes erupt into a full-blown banking crisis. Analysts at Bloomberg Government say it could cost U.S. airlines alone anywhere from $2 billion to $4 billion through 2020 to comply with the EU scheme.
More than twenty governments, including the United States, China, India, and Russia, have issued protests, and in some cases threatened retaliation. TheInternational Air Transport Association and some analysts warn the aviation issue could erupt into a trade war. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill forbidding U.S. airlines from participating in the EU's carbon market. Australian trade expert Alan Oxley said at a special seminar during December's UN climate conference that the potential demise of the Kyoto Protocol (Australian) would lead to more attempts like the EU's plan to erect trade barriers in order to combat climate change.
The Debate
Whether the EU's plan constitutes a tax that violates international trade (Guardian)and aviation law is hotly contested, as is the financial impact on the airline industry. "This is a trade barrier in the name of environmental protection," says an editorial by China's Xinhua news agency (FT). Market analysis compiled by Fitch Ratings notes that "retaliation may be largely rhetorical in the early stages, but an absence of progress next year may trigger protectionist responses, especially from emerging market governments."
Environmentalists, meanwhile, argue that non-EU airlines and their respective governments are blowing the issue out of proportion. "The financial impact will amount to, at most, some $16 for a transatlantic flight," writes environmental lawyer Vera Pardee, who notes that by participating in the carbon market some airlines might even make money (HuffingtonPost). While the EU will issue 85 percent of emissions allowance free, airlines could realize $27 billion in additional revenue over the next decade if they choose to charge customers anyway, according to the European Commission.
Policy Options
The EU has said it would exempt airlines complying with equivalent emissions-reduction policies based in their own countries. But opponents argue the EU mandate disrupts a plan by the International Civil Aviation Organization, the industry's governing body, to create a market-based emissions regime for international air travel, which could be initiated as early as 2013. Some experts say there is still time to broker a deal for governing emissions under the ICAO.
Jeff Gazzard, who works for a London-based environmental group, notes that the EU's market is an adequate global model for controlling aviation emissions and that all the world's airlines have already begun to take measures to comply (Economist), including applying for free allowances.
Background Materials
This primer from Pricewaterhouse Coopers International explores the EU's plan for aviation carbon trading.
This report from U.S.–based NGO World Growth looks at how to avoid "green protectionism." (PDF)
The World Bank's 2010 Development report examines the relationship betweentrade and climate change(PDF).
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
Marginalizing Ron Paul
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/marginalizing_ron_paul_20111229/?ln
Posted on Dec 29, 2011
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| AP / Charlie Riedel |
Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul is seen in a viewfinder as he speaks during a campaign stop at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.
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It is official now. The Ron Paul campaign, despite surging in the Iowa polls, is not worthy of serious consideration, according to a New York Times editorial; “Ron Paul long ago disqualified himself for the presidency by peddling claptrap proposals like abolishing the Federal Reserve, returning to the gold standard, cutting a third of the federal budget and all foreign aid and opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
That last item, along with the decade-old racist comments in the newsletters Paul published, is certainly worthy of criticism. But not as an alternative to seriously engaging the substance of Paul’s current campaign—his devastating critique of crony capitalism and his equally trenchant challenge to imperial wars and the assault on our civil liberties that they engender.
Paul is being denigrated as a presidential contender even though on the vital issues of the economy, war and peace, and civil liberties, he has made the most sense of the Republican candidates. And by what standard of logic is it “claptrap” for Paul to attempt to hold the Fed accountable for its destructive policies? That’s the giveaway reference to the raw nerve that his favorable prospects in the Iowa caucuses have exposed. Too much anti-Wall Street populism in the heartland can be a truly scary thing to the intellectual parasites residing in the belly of the beast that controls American capitalism.
It is hypocritical that Paul is now depicted as the archenemy of non-white minorities when it was his nemesis, the Federal Reserve, that enabled the banking swindle that wiped out 53 percent of the median wealth of African-Americans and 66 percent for Latinos, according to the Pew Research Center.
The Fed sits at the center of the rot and bears the major responsibility for tolerating the runaway mortgage-backed securities scam that is at the core of our economic crisis. After the meltdown it was the Fed that led ultra secret machinations to bail out the banks while ignoring the plight of the their exploited customers.
DARPA's new spy satellite could provide real-time video from anywhere on Earth
Artist concept of the Membrane Optical Imager for Real-Time Exploitation (MOIRE). Credit: DARPA
“It sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake” could be the theme song for a new spy satellite being developed by DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s latest proof-of-concept project is called the Membrane Optical Imager for Real-Time Exploitation (MOIRE), and would provide real-time images and video of any place on Earth at any time — a capability that, so far, only exists in the realm of movies and science fiction. The details of this huge eye-in-the-sky look like something right out of science fiction, as well, and it would be interesting to determine if it could have applications for astronomy as well.
Solyndra: Politics infused Obama energy programs
By Joe Stephens and Carol D. Leonnig,
Linda Sterio remembers the excitement when President Obama arrived at Solyndra last year and described how his administration’s financial support for the plant was helping create hundreds of jobs. The company’s prospects appeared unlimited as Solyndra executives described the backlog of orders for its solar panels.
Then came the August morning when Sterio heard a newscaster announce that more than a thousand Solyndra employees were out of work. Only recently did she learn that, within the Obama administration, the company’s potential collapse had long been discussed.
“It’s not about the people; it’s politics,” said Sterio, who remains jobless and at risk of losing her home. “We all feel betrayed.”
Since the failure of the company, Obama’s entire $80 billion clean-
technology program has begun to look like a political liability for an administration about to enter a bruising reelection campaign.
technology program has begun to look like a political liability for an administration about to enter a bruising reelection campaign.
Meant to create jobs and cut reliance on foreign oil, Obama’s green-technology program was infused with politics at every level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of memos, company records and internal e-mails. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials.
The records, some previously unreported, show that when warned that financial disaster might lie ahead, the administration remained steadfast in its support for Solyndra.
The documents reviewed by The Post, which began examining the clean-technology program a year ago, provide a detailed look inside the day-to-day workings of the upper levels of the Obama administration. They also give an unprecedented glimpse into high-level maneuvering by politically connected clean-technology investors.
They show that as Solyndra tottered, officials discussed the political fallout from its troubles, the “optics” in Washington and the impact that the company’s failure could have on the president’s prospects for a second term. Rarely, if ever, was there discussion of the impact that Solyndra’s collapse would have on laid-off workers or on the development of clean-
energy technology.
energy technology.
“What’s so troubling is that politics seems to be the dominant factor,” said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “They’re not talking about what the taxpayers are losing; they’re not talking about the failure of the technology, whether we bet on the wrong horse. What they are talking about is ‘How are we going to manage this politically?’ ”
The administration, which excluded lobbyists from policymaking positions, gave easy access to venture capitalists with stakes in some of the companies backed by the administration, the records show. Many of those investors had given to Obama’s 2008 campaign. Some took jobs in the administration and helped manage the clean-
energy program.
energy program.
Documents show that senior officials pushed career bureaucrats to rush their decision on the loan so Vice President Biden could announce it during a trip to California. The records do not establish that anyone pressured the Energy Department to approve the Solyndra loan to benefit political contributors, but they suggest that there was an unwavering focus on promoting Solyndra and clean energy. Officials with the company and the administration have said that nothing untoward occurred and that the loan was granted on its merits.
10 Million Pounds To Turn Off Wind Farms
Official figures disclosed that 17 operators were paid almost £7 million for shutting down their farms on almost 40 occasions between January and mid-September. Continuing to make payments at that rate would lead to householders paying out £9.9 million in 2011 for operators to disconnect their turbines from the National Grid.
The scale of the payments triggered a review of the rules on so-called constraint payments. The payments are made when too much electricity floods the grid, with the network unable to absorb any excess power generated. The money is ultimately added on to household bills and paid for by consumers.
Last year, only £176,788 of such payments were made, but changes in the way the National Grid, which supplies energy to retail companies, “balances” the electricity network have meant a huge expansion in their use.
The rules meant that some renewable energy companies were paid more to switch off their turbines than they would have received from ordinary operations.
In September, it was disclosed that £1.2 million would go to a Norwegian company that owned 60 turbines in the Scottish Borders, thanks to a period of unusually high wind during the spring. Because of the rising cost, the National Grid “balancing” system could now be overhauled to reduce the use of constraint payments.
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