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Thursday, July 17, 2003
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 Dale Allen Pfeiffer writes: Forget about terrorists. Don't give another thought to SARS. The single greatest threat to the U.S. right now comes from a critical shortage of natural gas. The impending crisis will affect all consumers directly in the pocket book, and it may well mean that some people won't survive next winter. The problem is not with wells or pumps. The problem is that North America is running out and there is no replacement supply. ... Even though oil and gas are almost always found in the same places and originate from the same organic matter, let's remind ourselves that Natural Gas is different from oil by nature. Being a gas as opposed to a liquid, once a well is drilled it takes relatively little effort to pump out the gas. There is little tapering off in production, little need to expend more energy driving the gas to the well hole. Natural Gas production profiles generally have a rise, a plateau, and then a steep cliff with little warning as the pressure in the well drops and the play peters out. Likewise, NG reserves are much more responsive to drilling than are oil reserves. The more wells you sink into a gas reserve, the more NG you will extract, and the quicker you will deplete the reserve. We must also bear in mind that, while the world as a whole is nowhere near peaking in NG production, the same is not true for North America. There may be massive known reserves of NG still untapped around the globe (especially in Russia), but that does us little good here. This is because NG is not easily transported overseas. First it must be chilled to liquid form in special processing plants, loaded onto specially built Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) tankers, shipped to specially designed offloading ports, and then reverted back to gaseous form. All of this cuts into the net energy of LNG and adds to the price. And the amount of LNG that can be shipped in this manner is limited by the size and number of tankers and the length of time for one full trip (from the Middle East to the US and back, with loading and unloading, up to half a year per tanker according to some sources). (07/17/03)
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 Joël de Rosnay writes: The atom, the molecule, the cell, the organism, and society fit one within the other like a series of Russian dolls. The largest of these dolls is the size of our planet, it contains the society of men and their economies the cities and industries that transform the world, the living organisms and the cells which comprise them. One could continue in this way to open successive dolls as far as the elementary particles, but let us stop here. The purpose of this preliminary exploration is twofold. First it is a matter of providing a "primer" in ecology, economics, and biology-- disciplines that force us today to modify our ways of thinking. The three are not often united in a single approach--a situation that offers a risk but also an advantage. The risk is that you may find that the material dealing with the field you know best is too schematic, too simplistic. The advantage (which derives directly from the use of the macroscope) is that you will be able to discover, in other fields, new knowledge that may enrich and enlarge your own personal outlook.Then it is a matter of introducing the concepts of "systems" and "systemic approach," the bases of the new culture of the concerned man of the twenty-first century. The opening of each doll exposes examples and practical aspects in advance of the general theory. ... The ecosystem is composed of four fields in strict interaction with one another: air, water, earth, and life. They are called respectively atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. The arrows in Figure 4 show that each field is related to all of the others. Even sediments on the floors of the oceans do not escape this rule; their composition depends not only on marine life and the composition of the oceans but also on the composition of the atmosphere. The flow of energy that passes through the ecosystem is irreversible and inexhaustible. However, the chemical elements that make up all mineral or organic forms that we know on earth exist in finite number. These elements are found in the very heart of the ecosystem and are recycled after use. Everything that lives is made from building blocks that contain only six basic elements: carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), sulphur (S), and phosphate (P). The structures remain, but the elements of construction are replaced. Biologists call this dynamic renewal turnover. Living things (and the colonies they form--forests, populations, coral reefs) are continually being assembled and disassembled. Thus the ecosystem must have on hand a considerable stock of replacement parts to insure recycling (nothing, remember, is produced de novo) and must control everything by a system of regulation that avoids scarcities as well as excesses. (07/17/03)
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 Environmental News Service -- Inhabitants of an oil rich country, Nigerians have had to resort to fuelwood due to the increase in price of petroleum products. When the Nigerian government on June 20 suddenly increased the prices of petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and the commonly used kerosene by about 50 percent, it was a decision with far reaching effects. Nigerian environmental groups say that massive deforestation of the nation’s severely depleted forest may follow if the fuel price increase is not reversed. "There is no doubt that the new price regime will bring pain, misery and despair to the Nigerian masses," says Nnimmo Bassey, executive director of Environmental Rights Agency (ERA). We are particularly worried that those who can no longer afford gas and kerosene would resort to felling trees to get fuelwood. This would lead to massive deforestation, biodiversity and habitat loss, including siltation of streams due to land cover clearing." In Nigeria, kerosene and gas are the major cooking fuels. The majority of the people rely on kerosene stoves for domestic cooking while only a few use gas and electric cookers. In the past, increases in the price of kerosene have forced rural dwellers and the urban poor to abandon their kerosene stoves in favor of the comparatively cheaper fuelwood, which is seen as a substitute source of energy. ... Nigeria’s original natural forest cover used to span over 600,000 square kilometers (231,660 square miles) at the beginning of the 20th century. Acute deforestation driven by uncontrolled demand for wood, mostly for fuelwood and also for export, has within a century reduced the country’s forest cover to less than 38,620 square kilometers (14,910 square miles), less than five percent of its original size. "Between 1976 and 1970, deforestation proceeded at an average rate of 400,000 hectares per annum," says a recent government study known as the Vision 2010 report. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization concluded that if this rate were maintained, "the remaining forest area in Nigeria would disappear by the year 2020." (07/17/03)
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 The Christian Science Monitor -- The presidency of George W. Bush is rapidly becoming Reaganesque in at least one area: the deficit. That's right - the river of red ink that characterized federal budget policy in the 1980s and early '90s is back. Tuesday the White House released a midterm budget update that estimates this year's deficit will be $450 billion or more. In dollar terms, even after adjusting for inflation, that would easily be the largest such shortfall ever. ... "You are not a fiscal conservative when the deficit runs to $400 billion on your watch," says Stan Collender, a budget expert at Fleishman-Hillard Inc. ... Only two years ago, the US government ended the year with its fourth straight surplus - $127 billion. Since then, the nation's accounts have suffered through their worst reversal ever. (07/17/03)
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 The New Scientist -- A team in Australia led by Graham Giles of The Cancer Council Victoria in Melbourne asked 1079 men with prostate cancer to fill in a questionnaire detailing their sexual habits, and compared their responses with those of 1259 healthy men of the same age. The team concludes that the more men ejaculate between the ages of 20 and 50, the less likely they are to develop prostate cancer. The protective effect is greatest while men are in their twenties: those who had ejaculated more than five times per week in their twenties, for instance, were one-third less likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer later in life. ... But why should ejaculating more often cut the risk of prostate cancer? The team speculates that ejaculation prevents carcinogens building up in the gland. The prostate, together with the seminal vesicles, secretes the bulk of the fluid in semen, which is rich in substances such as potassium, zinc, fructose and citric acid. Generating the fluid involves concentrating these components from the bloodstream up to 600-fold - and this could be where the trouble starts. Studies in dogs show that carcinogens such as 3-methylcholanthrene, found in cigarette smoke, are also concentrated in prostate fluid. "It's a prostatic stagnation hypothesis," says Giles. "The more you flush the ducts out, the less there is to hang around and damage the cells that line them." (07/17/03)
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 BBC Health -- The HIV virus is becoming increasingly resistant to drug treatments, researchers have warned. A study of 1,600 patients across Europe found one in 10 patients who have never taken antiretroviral drugs for HIV already had a resistance to at least one of them. Researchers suggest this can only have happened through HIV-positive patients who are taking the medications infecting others with a drug-resistant strain. They warn that if these strains of HIV continue to spread, it will limit the drugs doctors can use to treat the virus. The researchers recommend patients diagnosed with HIV who became infected in Europe should be tested to see if they have a drug-resistant strain. ... The study looked at how resistance was developing in different strains of HIV. When all the patients were examined, it was found that 10% had drug-resistant HIV. But when researchers looked more closely, they found rates differed depending on what type of HIV people were infected with. The research, which looked at HIV patients in 17 European countries, found drug-resistance in 11.3% in patients infected with HIV subtype B. This type of HIV is much more common in Europe and North America. Non-B HIV is more widespread in Africa and Asia, though it is spreading to Europe due to migration. (06/17/03)
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7:08:16 AM 
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© TrustMark
2003
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
8/3/2003; 11:27:21 PM.
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