Who pays the price?

According to a new scientific study, six species of coral are under threat of extinction in the Caribbean due to toxic runoff and rising temperatures from global warming.

Meanwhile, we are being told that a "compromise" was made on the issue of climate change at the G-8 Summit. As always with the mainstream media, symbolism is presented as substance.
According to the BBC,

"Leaders of the G8 nations have agreed to seek "substantial" cuts in emissions in an effort to tackle climate change. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the G8 would negotiate within a UN framework to seek a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol by the end of 2009. No mandatory target was set for the cuts, but Mrs Merkel's preference for a 50% emissions cut by the year 2050 was included in the agreed statement. Developing nations should also cut emissions, the leaders agreed." [Emphasis added]

So this is not an agreement, but a promise that some replacement for the Kyoto protocol will be negotiated two years from now. Why do we need a replacement? Because the US refused to sign the Kyoto protocol, which called for 60% emissions cuts by 2050.

But even if the U.S. does agree to this reduced cut (by no means guaranteed), is that enough? One of the problems with projecting cuts based on current trends is the non-linearity of climatic trends. According to a new study, one of the world's main carbon dioxide sinks, the Southern Ocean around Antartica, is now so C02-saturated that it is beginning to "fail" as an absorber of carbon dioxide.

According to the UK Independent, "As a result, atmospheric CO2 levels may rise faster and bring about rising temperatures more quickly than previously anticipated. Stabilising the CO2 level, which must be done to bring the warming under control, is likely to become much more difficult, even if the world community agrees to do it. " Read more!

Liberating Iraqis from their own land

According to the U.N. Refugee Agency, the number of Iraqis who have been driven from their homes since 2003 is about 4.2 million, 2.2 million of whom have fled Iraq (1.4 million into Syria, 750,000 in Jordan, and the rest in Iran, Turkey and other states). The other 2 million comprising this estimated figure are 'internally displaced,' concentrated in the central regions of Iraq.

This overshadows what is occurring in Darfur, but unlike that conflict, it is a direct result of U.S. military aggression, and so barely makes it onto the radar screen of the U.S. media.

This is similar to what occured in Palestine after 1948, and the occupied territories after 1967, with permanent refugee populations being created in neighboring states by military conquest. The situation is also, of course, analogous to Vietnam, where the bloodbath that became 1970s Cambodia was largely prepared by the crossborder refugee influx and massive U.S. bombing of Cambodia and Laos, in addition to South and North Vietnam.

The International Herald Tribune article linked above ends with the quaint sentence, "UNHCR hopes to find a permanent home for 20,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of the year." Ah, so the only organization likely to cater to their needs "hopes" that a tenth of them will be helped by the end of 2007. Read more!

Iraqi Oil Law

In a March 2007 op-ed piece in the New York Times, Antonia Juhasz pointed out that, under the Iraqi Hydrocarbon Law currently slated for passage, "The Iraq National Oil Company would have exclusive control of just 17 of Iraq’s 80 known oil fields, leaving two-thirds of known — and all of its as yet undiscovered — fields open to foreign control."

The law, which can be read here, is largely a blueprint for the privatization of Iraqi oil.

Back in 2004, a Shell representative told the UK Guardian that "We are interested in building a long term relationship with Iraqis."

They will not be alone. As the UK Independent observed in January, the new Iraqi oil law will give Exxon, BP and Shell 30-year contracts to develop Iraqi oil.

"Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled." Read more!