What blows around...

Comes around:

WASHINGTON — A new study further bolsters concerns that pollution blowing across the Pacific Ocean from China and other rapidly developing Asian nations may swamp efforts to clean up the air in the Western United States and make it difficult for states and cities to meet federal standards.
The study, based on 100,000 measurements over 25 years and a computer model tracking air-flow patterns, found that during the spring, ozone from Asia reaches Washington , Oregon , California and other states west of the Rocky Mountains .
For the first time, the study links ozone in the air above the United States with Asian pollution, said Dan Jaffe , a professor of atmospheric and environmental chemistry at the University of Washington-Bothell and one of the study's authors.
"It is possible that emissions from emerging economies like China , with relatively limited emissions controls, are outpacing reductions in the developing countries," the report concludes. It says that the Asian emissions may "hinder the USA's compliance with its own ozone air-quality standard."
Previous studies have detected such pollutants from Asia as mercury, soot and PCBs reaching the United States . A National Academy of Sciences study last year pointed to increasing unease among regulators about a growing problem.

Canada sees our pollution acidifying their lakes. I'm sure we will soon be able to prove that the dust in Turkey came from a dump in the Congo which came from a desert in Colombia which came from a factory in Thailand which came from a ship from India which came from ....

It has always been about oil, hasn't it?

Even the torture and death of innocents doesn't get in the way:



This will be where our next few wars will be.

h/t to Errington Thompson of Where's the Outrage? for the video.

Imagine a world where the sea level is rising

And glaciers are disappearing. No drinking water for millions. Welcome to 2035.

Last year the UN environment programme and the WGMS jointly published data for 1,800 glaciers on all seven continents, which warned losses had been accelerating globally since the mid-1980s, so that the annual average decline for 1996-2005 was double that of the previous decade, and four times that of the decade before. Last week China Dialogue, a London-based organisation dedicated to debate on China's environment issues, launched a campaign to highlight the same trends in melting in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan plateau.

Those glaciers feed all the main river systems in Asia, depended on by the estimated 40% of the world's population that lives in northern India, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam, said Isabel Hilton, China Dialogue's editor.

"In a region that is already fractured and unstable, the melting of the 'third pole' glaciers is one of the most important challenges facing humanity in the 21st century," she said.

In December the US Geological Survey also warned that sea-level rise could be even worse than feared, as much as 1.5 metres by the end of this century, partly due to increased melting of the volume of water stored in glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland.

The Water Wars are upon us.

The dominoes begin to fall

Shipping rates hit zero as trade sinks

Freight rates for containers shipped from Asia to Europe have fallen to zero for the first time since records began, underscoring the dramatic collapse in trade since the world economy buckled in October.

[snip]

The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) which measures freight rates for bulk commodities such as iron ore and grains crashed several months ago, falling 96pc. The BDI – though a useful early-warning index – is highly volatile and exaggerates apparent ups and downs in trade. However, the latest phase of the shipping crisis is different. It has spread to core trade of finished industrial goods, the lifeblood of the world economy.

Trade data from Asia's export tigers has been disastrous over recent weeks, reflecting the collapse in US, UK and European markets.

It's a small world after all...

What you get when you toss the use of the soft voice

And use only the big stick.

The Bush administration's lack of diplomacy around the world is backfiring. Steve Benen at Talking Points Memo:

Walter Lohman, who covers Asian affairs for the conservative Heritage Foundation, noted, "Canceling a meeting here or there may not seem like a big deal, but the slights are piling up." He added, "Unless the Bush administration can quickly get back on track, the game is over; it will fall to the next president to revitalize the U.S. commitment" to Asia.

And Latin America. And Africa.

Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said outside of Europe, where Bush has made some efforts at engagement, "things don't look as good," particularly in countries experiencing far-reaching changes stemming from China's rise. Kupchan added, "There doesn't seem to be anybody who's minding the store at the top level."

We've all seen the quality of work at the top level...









Update: Apparently the top level is still trying to sell its tired old propaganda in place of diplomacy. Via Firedoglake:

A few months ago, she decided to write an opinion piece about Lebanon. She enlisted John Chambers, chief executive officer of Cisco Systems as a co-author, and they wrote about public/private partnerships and how they might be of use in rebuilding Lebanon after last summer’s war. No one would publish it.

Think about that. Every one of the major newspapers approached refused to publish an essay by the secretary of state. Price Floyd, who was the State Department’s director of media affairs until recently, recalls that it was sent to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and perhaps other papers before the department finally tried a foreign publication, the Financial Times of London, which also turned it down.

As a last-ditch strategy, the State Department briefly considered translating the article into Arabic and trying a Lebanese paper. But finally they just gave up. “I kept hearing the same thing: ‘There’s no news in this.’ ” Floyd said. The piece, he said, was littered with glowing references to President Bush’s wise leadership. “It read like a campaign document.”

Asian economy vs. Cheney or Hillary

This journalist says Asian countries don't like either one:

Perhaps a diversion to consider the fragile reputation of America's politics is necessary here. The lost war in Iraq has failed to make the US government honest - indeed, the opposite appears to have happened. Like an alcoholic on the run from his treatment clinic, wrecking drink cabinets, Vice President Richard Cheney stomped into the capitals of US allies as the unapologetic face of the most unpopular US administration in recent history.

In so doing, he caused more damage to America's friends than its enemies could possibly inflict in a one-week window. To name just two, Cheney's visit has virtually guaranteed Prime Minister John Howard's re-election defeat in Australia, [4] and rendered precarious the position of Pakistan's unelected President General Pervez Musharraf, who had the indignity of being admonished by the petulant "veep".

At home, the conviction of Lewis "Scooter" Libby has added another layer of concern for the besieged White House, while the poor treatment of its war veterans in hospital will likely depress even diehard Republicans. That leaves the field wide open for a Hillary assault on the presidency next year. I expect that on her way, Senator Clinton will put into play everything that the Republicans stood for, including free trade and a measured approach to China.

This is where the Asian response becomes critical. Expecting no help from the American consumer is one thing, but also to confront political assaults is an entirely different matter. The upshot is that Asian countries will be forcefully cajoled into allowing their currencies to appreciate against the US dollar in coming months, with people like US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urging action (as he did this week) sooner so that these countries do not have to confront something worse later on, viz a Hillary presidency.

More here:

Washington, DC (AHN) - Even as China is finally making some moves to liberalize its markets, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is urging it to do so more quickly. While the Republicans controlled the U.S. Congress, they watched as China protected its export market by depressing the yuan's value instead of allowing it to float against the U.S. dollar.

The yuan is undervalued by as much as 40 percent, which makes its exports extremely cheap and gives its exporters an advantage that is unfair, Bloomberg news reported on Friday.

But with record high U.S. deficits for both the federal budget and in American trade compared to China's massive budget and trade surpluses, it is unlikely that the Democrats will follow the failed Republican economic policy regarding China.

In a speech Thursday at the Shanghai Futures Exchange Paulson, saying that "time is of the essence," gave a nudge to the Chinese.

"An open, competitive and liberalized financial market can effectively allocate scarcer resources in a manner that promotes stability and prosperity far better than government intervention," Paulson said, according to Bloomberg news reports.

Telling the Chinese that their economy was unbalanced, Paulson listed steps they could take to bring it into balance, including letting the yuan float.

The need for the Chinese to balance their economy away from its focus on exports might help Paulson avert a growing bipartisan trend in Congress to move toward protectionism because the U.S. trade deficit, at $232.5 billion last year, is at a record high, Bloomberg news reported Friday.

Surging Chinese imports are costing American workers jobs and small manufacturers business.

Last year Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, pulled back from legislation that would have added a 27.5 percent tariff on Chinese imports.

But this year he is working with the Senate Finance Committee as they develop legislation to conform to rules of the World Trade Organization, while still putting pressure on the Chinese, according to Bloomberg reports.