Editorial Comment
Do as I say...In this space in the October issue, we wondered why this year’s Offshore Northern Seas Conference (ONS) devoted so much time and effort to exploring environmental issues rather than technical ones. And we surmised that it was because the Norwegians view themselves as being "greener" than most other oil producing countries. Well, they may see green in the mirror, but they project a totally different image, as viewed by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWFN). According to a report published by WWFN, and discussed in the New Scientist, Norwegians "are the most environmentally destructive people on earth." In fact, Norwegians put four times as much pressure on the environment as the average world inhabitant and 50% more than the environmentally naughty Americans. The WWFN evaluates the burden countries place on world ecosystems by estimating their use of four natural resources, including grain, wood, fresh water and marine fish. The group also looks at carbon dioxide emissions (which was THE big topic of ONS) and land use, as indicated by cement consumption. As one might expect, Norway’s consumption of fish leads the list of overindulgence, but it’s not because of direct human consumption. Rather, Norway uses 10 times the world average since it feeds fish to the salmon in fish farms all along its coast. However, special advisor to the Environment Ministry in Oslo Paul Hofseth said in the New Scientist that, "...we make sustainable use of our marine fish. I can’t see how that damages the global environment." He also defends Norway’s timber consumption, saying that, "we use only half of the timber that grows in our country each year." Another surprise in the report is that Denmark (another self-appointed green country) ranked fifth in per capita relative pressure on the environment, just ahead of the U.S., which was sixth. Other countries in the top 12 include Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and Canada. The UK holds 41st place, and Bangladesh had the least environmental impact. Is U.S. oil crawfishing on global warming? Considering recent comments by the American Petroleum Institute’s executive vice president, one may think that the organization is softening its stand against the global warming theorists. At least that’s a possible interpretation of the opening line from an API news release in which William F. O’Keefe was quoted as telling Congress, "The U.S. petroleum industry is committed to being ‘part of the solution’ in responding to the potential risks of climate change." The above seems to be quite a departure from views expressed by the Global Climate Coalition, where Mr. O’Keefe used to serve as chairman. This association of oil and other industrial firms has lobbied hard against the Kyoto Protocol. However, British Petroleum and Royal / Dutch Shell both withdrew from the GCC, while remaining members of API, and have taken a more conciliatory position on climate change. Maybe it’s coincidental, but there now seems to be a new sentiment emerging at API too. O’Keefe says that the industry recognizes "potential human-induced climate change as a legitimate risk," and that "the debate is not about action or inaction, but what set of actions is consistent with our state of knowledge and economic well being." To us, the above statements sound a lot like an admission that global warming is fact rather than theory. However, the language began to warm as we got further into the press release, with O’Keefe saying that impacts from global warming are "more moderate and in the more distant future" than the Kyoto Protocol implies. He then said that the protocol "would require Americans to drastically slash their energy use in order to cut carbon emissions by a third in little over a decade." The result of this would be recessions, lost income and high unemployment, all at even greater levels than those seen during the energy price shocks of the 1970s, according to O’Keefe. Could it be that API has changed its tactics? It now appears that the trade group is trying to influence public thinking by bringing up the pocketbook issues rather than using science to refute climate change theory in the first place. That’s too bad — pushing opinions onto the public can be very tricky, as the Republicans just learned in last month’s elections. News you can use. We have run into some interesting items recently that probably escaped your attention. Some were found in obscure publications while using the worldwide web to research other topics. Others are from more conventional sources. From a place called Sirsa comes the report, "Seven persons were killed on the spot and two seriously injured when the jeep in which they were traveling collided with an oil tanker, near village Meerpur on Sirsa-Dabwali road." Before noting that this story was from The Indian Express, and thus was written in British English, we could only wonder how that ship got onto the highway. A tiny clip from The Washington Post, datelined Kabul, Afghanistan, said, "Drivers and pedestrians in Afghanistan’s war-shattered capital were astonished to see traffic lights working for the first time in six years." Now, that’s progress! From Knight-Ridder News Service comes a copyrighted story stating that the inscription on metal bands used by the U.S. Department of Interior to tag migratory birds has been changed. The bands previously bore the address and name of the Washington Biological Survey, which was abbreviated as follows: Wash. Biol. Surv. DOI decided a switch was needed after receiving the following letter from a camper in Arkansas:
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