Monday, September 08, 2003

Remembering the Past Timothy Wilken, MD writes:  Did you watch the opening ceremony for 2002 Winter Olympics last year? It was beautiful. We sure put on a good show for the rest of the world. We honor and cherish the first humans to inhabit North America — the Native Americans.  We respect and protect the native animals of America — the Buffalo, Coyote, and Eagle. And, did you see the beautiful paper puppets? Wasn't the one of the giant American Bison cool with the all the little buffalos running inside of it? Of course, our show for the rest of the world wasn't really the truth. It was only a picture of the world as it "ought to be". An "ideal" picture of early America. This is the way our Amercian history "ought to have been". In the "real" world — in the world of "is", those arriving from Europe would kill or imprison most of the Native Americans, use the Chinese and African immigrants as slave labor, and kill all but 800 of the millions of mighty Buffalo that ran on the American plains. This was the number of living Buffalo at the end of the 19th century. Our American history "could have been different". But it wasn't. I am suggesting that the opening ceremony "could" also have been different. It could have presented the settlement of the American west with a little more respect for the truth. It could have still been beautiful, perhaps even more beautiful. I think it would have been much more valuable to show the rest of the world that we know that real adversity is a part of our history. That we know we made mistakes in the past, and have committed to learn from those mistakes. That we now have respect for Native Americans, Chinese Americans and African Americans. That we wish we had not made so many native animal species extinct, and that today we cherish all live on planet Earth. This would have shown the world that we did remember the past. ... (09/08/03) Problems in the Saudi Oil Patch Andrew Main writes: About three years ago, the Saudi national oil company, Saudia Aramco, decided to crank up production from a well in the middle of the Ghawar field, the biggest onshore oilfield in the world. The well, one of more than 200 in the field, was turning out 20,000 barrels of oil a day and the plan was to pump 40,000. The wellhead pumps were quickly able to double their output, but engineers were startled to discover they were now getting a 50-50 mix of oil and water. So there was no increase in oil output at all. Worse, the excess pumping caused the water table to rise and push the oil to one side, a problem known as coning. Result: one largely useless well in the biggest onshore field in the world. The news travelled fast even in Arabia Deserta, the Empty Quarter. Although one cone of water does not a busted oilfield make, it showed that water was rising more quickly to replace extracted oil than most experts had expected. Ghawar's porosity will allow an eventual extraction of about 60 per cent, or 69 billion barrels. Which means that with 45 billion extracted, the field is long past its peak, and at present production will last only another 16 to 17 years. But production in old wells is a bit like getting the last out of the tomato sauce bottle: you never quite get there, and it is bound to thin out. So is the world running out of oil? Yes, although no one can accurately predict when it will. Is it the end of the world? No. Or it won't be if the world's scientists can arrange for us to switch our allegiance to renewable forms of energy. (09/08/03) Glaciers 'Melting Fast' BBC Nature -- Researchers say glaciers are melting so fast in parts of Kazakhstan that the livelihoods of millions of people will be affected. They found the area's glaciers were losing almost two cubic kilometres of ice annually during the later 20th Century. With regional temperatures rising, they believe climate change is responsible. The scientists, led by Dr Stephan Harrison of the University of Oxford, reported their findings at the annual conference in London of the UK's Royal Geographical Society and Institute of British Geographers. They concentrated on the Zailiiskiy Alatau range of the northern Tien Shan mountains, which stretch through Kazakhstan and its neighbour Kyrgyzstan, and into China (the name means "the celestial mountains"). The mountains, which run for 2,000 km (1,250 miles) along the north-west edge of the Tibetan plateau, form an important climatic barrier between the Siberian and central Asian air masses. ... Many of the rivers which supply the irrigation schemes essential to agriculture are fed by glaciers and permafrost in the upper ranges of the Tien Shan, so the livelihoods of millions of people will be affected. The authors say not only Kazakh agriculture and development will be jeopardised but the political stability of a swathe of central Asia, as many of the rivers and glaciers cross state frontiers. (09/08/03) Winged Migration As evergrowing human population and overuse of the Earth's natural resources pushes all other forms of life off the planet, it is a time for reflection as to what we are losing. The producer of a remarkable film, Jacques Perrin writes: "Earthbound, watching the birds fly across the sky, we undertook this film. We had to go higher, nearer the birds, within striking distance of the stars. How could we manage it? Man has dreamt of birds since the beginning of time. How to imagine being among the first to transform this dream into reality? I will always treasure the memory of the first time we achieved this. The cameraman was following the movements of the geese, with one hand the assistant pushed away those who came too near the camera: the whole spool of film ran out. Radiant, tears in their eyes, they looked at me, speechless, motionless. Their mastery and the technical result were of minor importance, they had been in the confidence of the birds in flight. What if, for the space of a year, we no longer waited for the seasons, what if we embarked on the most fabulous of journeys, what if, abandoning our towns and our countryside, we went on a tour of the planet? What if we understood that our borders did not exist, that the earth is a one and only space and what if we learned to be free as birds?"  (09/08/03) Albatrosses Face Growing Peril BBC Nature -- The plight of several species of albatross has worsened significantly in the last year, conservationists say. They say populations of six of the 21 albatross species have shown "a further alarming decrease". One, previously thought to be safe, is now believed to be at high risk of extinction. The culprits are said to be longline fishing boats, blamed for thousands of bird deaths annually. The warning is sounded by BirdLife International, an alliance of conservation groups working in more than 100 countries. ... BirdLife says research its experts have analysed shows the mounting peril the birds face, with all 21 species now thought to face some risk of extinction. ... The five relevant categories are critically endangered (a species facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild); endangered (very high risk); vulnerable (high risk); near-threatened (close to qualifying as vulnerable); and least concern (a category including widespread and abundant species). What has excited BirdLife's alarm is the way the threat to six species is creeping inexorably up the scale: 1) Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross, near-threatened in 2000, is now endangered, 2) black-browed albatross, near-threatened in 2000 and vulnerable last year, becomes endangered,  3) black-footed, sooty and Indian yellow-nosed albatrosses, all up from vulnerable in 2000 to endangered, 4) now Laysan albatross, of least concern three years ago, is today classed as vulnerable. The most threatened species of all, the Amsterdam albatross, already classed as critically endangered, now faces an additional threat from disease. (09/08/03) 7:31:26 AM

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