Paris: Any Hope for Her?

A confused Species in Our Time
from http://www.rockhoundstation1.com/
EARTHWATCH09.html

The Scientific American magazine gave us a grim picture before the advent of summer 2011 (April 29, 2011). The picture itself was older, it was of summer 2008. “This bear swam continuously for 232 hours and 687 km and through waters that were 2-6 degrees C,” reports USGS research zoologist George M. Durner. In two months she had to swim hundreds of miles for food, for some place to rest. “But while the mama bear survived the ordeal, she lost 22 percent of her body fat .... And her cub was not so fortunate.”

Obama opened Arctic for Oil Drill in February 2012. Before that they had to ‘clear’ their way. The scientist who spread the news of danger in front of the polar bears got suspended from his government job for inappropriate conduct in July 2011.

The year 2012 saw the Lowest Arctic Ice sheet ever measured after the advent of satellite imagery. That was September 2012. Friends of that suspended scientist, Charles Monnett, meanwhile got respite as the ‘investigation’ for scientific misconduct could not yield any evidence at all and the government had to reinstate that scientist. [By the way, before that Great Arctic Summer Melting was shocking revealed in September 2012, Bill Mckibben's article "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math" appeared in the Rolling Stone Magazine (August 2, 2012).]

Charles Monnett’s paper first highlighted the sad plight of the Polar Bears way back in 2006. And we saw the curious TIME magazine cover in that year showing a confused Polar Bear. Why not! It was going to be the first showcase victim species of Climate Change (or the ‘extreme climate’ conditions that we are passing through now).

In came 2015. While in the end of September environmentalists were relieved seeing Shell leaving Arctic. No, Shell was not leaving yielding to the demands of environmentalists or accepting that Arctic drill will put further pressure on the endangered species Polar Bear. They were leaving just by their cold business calculations. And they are not going for ever either. By the way, the European Union also shoved off the demand of environmentalists to stop oil exploration in the Arctic way back in 2012, even after the hottest or smallest Arctic year was recorded. And while Shell was pulling its anchors, we saw Indian companies busy in fixing deals with their Russian counterpart. Rosneft bought significant stake in Essar Oil. And then ONGC bought a good percentage of Rosneft. They will explore gas at Arctic Shelf and also oil.

This year saw the fourth lowest ice-cover ever in the Arctic.

Arctic Ice Cover from http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png  at 22:30 hrs Sept 30, 2015

In front of such staunch adversaries, can an endangered species hope something?

PS: October 9, 2015: Now, we are served with a chiller news. "NOAA: Coral bleaching has gone global for the third time ever". Interested readers please go through the news item  "NOAA declares third ever global coral bleaching event, Bleaching intensifies in Hawaii, high ocean temperatures threaten Caribbean corals, October 8, 2015" at http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2015/100815-noaa-declares-third-ever-global-coral-bleaching-event.html

Moving to Renewables: Why we should not be Deceived by the Oil Price Fall

During past several weeks we are witnessing a lot of confusion regarding future of renewables while crude price was tumbling. Sadly, it was not confined among novices of resource economics or markets. We do not know how could FT make a heading like “The Big Drop: Cheap oil burns green energy”! [By Pilita Clark in London, December 17, 2014] Even Mr Eric Reguly, European Bureau Chief Rome of The Globe and Mail very guardedly wrote “History suggests that clean energy and cheap oil are not compatible. ... I suspect that China’s clean-energy drive will slow down a bit if oil stays low. The Chinese are cost-conscious capitalists and won’t be able to resist entirely an energy bargain. But here’s hoping that ... cheap oil will not entirely derail China’s clean-energy pursuit.” [Cheaper oil and China’s clean-energy drive, The Globe and Mail Published Friday, Jan. 09 2015]

There are two obvious points that guide us to move steadily towards renewable energy even if we choose not to learn from the great German Example: one of the most technically advanced and sophisticated economy marching progressively towards a Zero-Nuclear & clean energy future. Already in the last year, we saw Germany setting a new record, generating 74 Percent of power needs from Renewable Energy even if for a single Sunday, which only showed Germany’s huge advancement in this field – producing more than a quarter of energy need from renewable on an average. [Think Progress, Kiley Kroh, May 13, 2014]

Point 1: Crude price fluctuate regularly as historical time-series data show. Ugo Bardi of the celebrated Club of Rome is one of the most respectful figures in the field of resources. Perhaps he got a bit annoyed over noisy market chatterers and presented a beautiful chart in his blog Cassandra Legacy which we reproduce here: (this chart was made by Frances Coppola)

Figure 1 from http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.in/2015/01/the-oil-price-collapse-whats-so-special.html

 It is a semi-log graph showing prices in log scale and it traces crude price in the last 30 years. It showed that oil is indeed slippery and 50% to even 75% falls are not uncommon or unforeseen.  Moreover within 2-3 years price rises again with general tendency of going up to a higher point than the previous crest. 

The inflation data website has yet another illuminating presentation showing us the oil price fluctuation in perspective (http://inflationdata.com/articles/inflation-adjusted-prices/gasoline/).  Let us see that:

Figure 2 Inflation adjusted oil price $/gallon, Courtesy http://inflationdata.com

So we can rest assured that just for a dip in crude price (which this time is more political than economic) we need not be nervous about future of renewable energy, that governments and inventors may opt for fossil-fuel again and ... etc. 

Point 2: Our drive for Renewable energy is not just a market-driven drive. It not only stems from resource economics but also and mainly from Ecological considerations. If making cheap was the criteria we would have ended up in a coal-economy as in Great Britain a century before or Coketown of the “Hard Times” (Charles Dickens) earlier. The rise of green-thinking in the second half of the last century was behind our paradigm shift from solely soulless profit-driven economic considerations. Nobody would like to see their future living in high rises in high deserts surrounded by high seas. And that was precisely where our development mania was driving us.

Some governments are trying to assimilate parts or bits of this new ecological paradigm, for example in Europe we have Spain and the Nordic or Scandinavian countries besides Germany. Governments are subsidising renewable like solar and wind knowing t fully well that subsidy ‘distorts’ market.

RWE AG, one of Germany’s largest utilities, is not feeling shaky with global crude price drop and their energy price drop as a recent Bloomberg report suggests. They just view it as a temporary or transient phase.

We also need not be concerned much fancying some dirtier bleaker renewable future. Moreover, people can propel government choices too, at least to some considerable extent.

Acknowledgement: I am thankful to Professor Ugo Bardi, http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.in/ and the website http://inflationdata.com

Published in Business Economics, 01-14 February 2015