vanishing plankton

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that oceanic plankton have largely disappeared off the San Francisco coast, Oregon, and parts of Canada, due to the lack of the usual cold upwelling. The effect is rippling through the food web.

The larger fish and baleen whales eat mostly krill: free-floating, shrimp- like crustaceans ranging from one to two inches, the upper size limit of the zooplankton realm.
. . .
In perhaps the most ominous development, seabird nesting has dropped significantly on the Farallon Islands off San Francisco, the largest Pacific Coast seabird rookery south of Alaska.
. . .
Peterson said a major die-off of double-crested cormorants recently occurred in Oregon, and juvenile salmon numbers have dropped precipitously. Both events, he said, are likely due to the warm water.

Related to global warming? Possibly so:

A recent study indicated the phenomenon may be long term, and linked to global warming.

Last week, Fisheries and Oceans Canada -- the federal agency dealing with Canada's marine and inland waters -- released a report saying 2004's spring and summer ocean surface temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska and off British Columbia were the warmest in 50 years.

The study concluded the record high temperatures were caused by abnormally warm weather in Alaska and western Canada, as well as "general warming of global lands and oceans."

If so, we may owe a big ol' thank-you to Mr. Cooney and his buddies.

feds fear broadband terror

Smartmobs has picked up a Wired story about federal security agencies worrying about broadband systems on aircraft. Their concern is apparantely that terrorists could use them to communicate with other terrorists on the same or other aircraft, or to remotely detonate a bomb.

I guess I'm missing something, but I don't understand how airborn broadband technology will give terrorists an ability they don't have today.

To communicate with others in the same or different aircraft, can't a terrorist just use a cell phone? If they don't want to talk out loud, it seems like they could still use a cell modem plugged into their laptop and instant messaging software. (Or if they're on the same plane, middle-school tricks like passing notes or Morse code "absent-mindedly" tapped out with a pencil might even work.)

To remotely detonate an explosive, what's to stop a plain old direct radio link? Something along the lines of a garage door opener with beefed-up transmission power?

Again, maybe I'm missing something central here, but it doesn't seem like the agencies involved have carefully considered the threat model. Rather than concentrating security on only one possible communication channel, it seems like it would be more productive to put the effort into detecting the explosives, putting sky marshals on the plane, and/or maybe modifying cargo holds to have blow-out panels.

we're not afraid

After the London bombing, a friend and I were talking about the fact that CNN spent a ton of time breathlessly reporting about the deployment of bomb-sniffing dogs on New York and DC subways. My take was that they felt compelled to talk about the London bombing but there just wasn't much new info coming out of London, so they had to stretch. She was less charitable: she thought they were so arrogant as to think that people in the U.S. would rather hear about non-news in this country than real news overseas.

In either case, and in sharp contrast to the major networks' news coverage, I offer this link to We're Not Afraid, courtesy of Smart Mobs. Their favorite submissions page is definitely worth a look.

meditations on a bumper sticker

At their worst, bumper stickers are inane, boring, or mere advertising. At their best, their few words open doors to layers of meaning, a sort of western haiku.

Case in point: the car in front of me this morning had a bumper sticker that read:

God, give me the serenity . . . to accept this damn traffic!

The sticker, as I said, was on a car. Traffic, or at least the kind of traffic this person was talking about, is made of cars. So the sticker was really a prayer for

God, give me serenety . . . to accept a problem of which I'm a part!

Certainly anyone would need serenity to accept a problem like that. But as I pondered the sticker further, I wondered what happened to the rest of the AA serenity prayer that it's playing on. Where's the courage to change the things you can, or the wisdom to know the difference? What this driver had accepted was that creating and living in traffic was the only option. Now, maybe for this person it really was, but maybe not.

Maybe you've seen the commercial on TV. There's a woman talking about how she wants to save the environment. But not at the expense of her car -- she loves her car. The commercial goes on to say that's why the car maker is making efficient cars. But the message here, like the one on the bumper-sticker, is clear: your car is such an integral part of your life that you can't give it up.

There's an interesting theory called "peak oil." It says that oil production will peak, and then decline, some time around 2007, give or take a few years. It's based mostly on oil reserves and how expensive it is to get oil out of the ground. The theory's somewhat controversial, and some sites like this one raise the degree of hype to pre-Y2K levels. On the other hand, demand continues to increase as China and India try to move their populations to first world living standards. Consider, for example, PetroChina's size and Chinese company CNOOC's attempt to buy Unocal. China's population is 1,306,313,812. India's is 1,080,264,388. The US? 295,734,134. It might be worth considering what will happen to oil prices when and if the 2.3 billion people in China and India become like the 0.3 billion in the United States and can't live without their cars, either.

Maybe, instead of just asking for the serenity to accept things as they are, we should all consider asking for the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Kelo v. New London

There's much cussin' and discussin' on Slashdot about today's Supreme Court ruling in Kelo v. New London. This blog entry is a slight rewrite of a comment I posted there.

First of all, just for some quick background, the Fifth Amendment does not allow the government to take private property for private use at all. When taking private property for public use, it must sometimes compensate the owner.

Past public use cases Court mention in the opinion:

Berman v. Parker (1954) The Court upheld a Washington DC law that allowed the government to condemn and take private lands in blighted areas, compensate the owners, and then lease or sell the land to potential developers. The Court held that renovating a slum was not a "private purpose" under the Takings Clause.

Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff (1984) In Hawaii, a small number of landowners owned almost all the land. Almost everyone else was renting. The Court upheld a Hawaii law that let long-term tenants ask a state authority to condemn the land they lived on, compensate the owner, and then sell the land to the tenant. Again, the Court held that this process was "public use" under the Takings Clause.

Much of the discussion revolved around the fact that the decision seems to be a liberal/conservative split.

At first blush, it looks like the ruling in Kelo v. New London, that the government can condemn and take houses in a non-blighted area, compensate the owners, and give them to a developer for redevelopment in an attempt to rejuvinate the town, doesn't seem to be much of an extension of the other two cases.

On the other hand, I get the feeling there's some maneuvering going on, here. Notice in Hawaii Housing Authority how a very similar interpretation of public use allowed the government redistributed large concentrations of property to "the little guy." Also, keep in mind that property doesn't just mean land: shares of corporate stock are also property. Property rights include things like how you're allowed to use land, too.

On the third hand (the Vorlon hand?) the Court's willingness to defer to the legislature seems to give governments a lot of power. I haven't decided yet whether that's good or bad. The answer may wind up going pretty deeply into why a society chooses to enforce property rights in the first place, and who would be likely to have that power if the government didn't.

updates on the global warming post

Thanks to Maria for this tip-off: the New York Times is reporting that U.S. pressure has succeeded in rewording the draft of the G-8's joint statement on global warming. The Guardian's story is here. According to the Times article, the changes remove the call for prompt action.

Among the changes reflected in the May 27 draft was the deletion of an introductory statement, "Our world is warming." The annotated American copy of the document also offered comments to negotiators for the other nations like "we should avoid the term 'targets' " and "we should leave the definition of what constitutes 'ambitious' to each leader, given their respective national circumstances."

Given the high fraction of global carbon emissions that the U.S. contributes, allowing countries to decide for themselves what "ambitious" means represents a serious de-toothing of the statement, which may have some nasty repercussions as countries like China and India increase their populations' living standards. As I wrote earlier, you can find the U.N.'s numbers on global carbon emissions per capita here.

Also, remember Philip Cooney, the the chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, who resigned after allegations surfaced that he had doctored scientific reports to make it seem like global warming was a lot more controversial than it used to be? It looks like he just landed a job at an oil company. Which one? Well, remember the Herald Sun article that said this?

Also yesterday, a British newspaper claimed to have seen official papers showing pressure from oil and gas giant Exxon Mobil partly prompted President George W. Bush to reject the Kyoto protocol on climate change.

You guessed it. Cooney will hire on with Exxon this fall. Honestly, in the wake of the Valdez disaster, I'm surprised Exxon isn't paying more attention to public relations. Thanks to Polizeros for letting me know about the hiring.

UK memos in context: a timeline

I've put the various British memos into a timeline of events to better understand their context. The timeline draws from two published on the web, at Infoplease and Mideast Web. The memos come from Raw Story and the Times Online. You can also find copies now at downingstreetmemo.com. Since putting this timeline together has consumed most of my weekend, I don't have time right now to write much about the analysis, but the general conclusion is that the Bush administration seems to have made up its mind to get rid of Saddam Hussein by one means or another as of March, 2002, based on a number of factors including a belief that he had a WMD program and "unfinished business" from 1991 (as one of the papers discusses.) This may well be an example of a new-ish administration, flush from a previous victory in Afghanistan, making a policy choice and then selecting the facts to match.

11 Sep 2001 : Attack on World Trade Center.

21 Sep 2001 : US officials tell the Washington Times that Saddam Hussein made contact with Osama Bin Laden days before the attacks.

7 Oct 2001 : US invasion of Afghanistan begins with Operation Enduring Freedom

13 Nov 2001 : Afghan capital Kabul falls

7 Dec 2001 : Afghan city Kandahar falls

29 Jan 2002 : President Bush's State of the Union address lists Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Syria as parts of the "axis of evil"

8 Mar 2002 : British memo: "IRAQ: OPTIONS PAPER" from the Overseas and
Defence Secretariat Cabinet Office. The paper discusses the policy tradeoffs of continuing a containment policy or moving to a policy of regime change. It indicates that Saddam Hussein was continuing to develop weapons of mass distruction, but that UK intelligence about that was poor. (Para. 4) It indicates there was no greater threat of Hussein using WMDs than there had been in recent years. (Para. 9) It states that the U.S. had lost confidence in the containment policy and that some in the U.S. government wanted Hussein removed. Factors it cites include
the success of operation Enduring Freedom, distrust of UN sanctions and inspection regimes, and "unfinished business" from the 1991 invasion. (Para. 10) It notes that the U.S. believed the legal basis for an invasion already existed. (Para. 10 and see the legal memo for more.) A full-scale ground campaign would require 4-5 months to assemble, and that the ideal time to start action would be early spring. (Para. 23) Finally, it concludes that the use of force in a ground campaign is the only option that would guarantee Hussein's removal and a return of Iraq to the international community. (Para. 33)

8 Mar 2002 : British Memo: "IRAQ: LEGAL BACKGROUND" (the memo itself is un-dated, but the but the Options Paper, paragraph 28, refers to it as being attached.) The memo discusses the law governing use of force against Iraq. It covers four possibilities. The first is using resolution 678 (1990) directly, the second is 678 (1990) as authorized by 1205 (1998), the third is a theory of self-defence against a threat of WMDs, and the fourth is use of force for humanitarian intervention. The overall conclusion is that, at the present time, the legal climate does not authorize use of force against Iraq. The paper notes that the US has a different view of the law. (Para. 2) There are two governing Security Council resolutions. Resolution 678 (1990) authorized use of force in Iraq. Resolution 687 (1991) established a cease-fire with conditions. If Iraq violated the conditions of the cease-fire, that would revive the authorization for use of force. (Para. 1) The tricky bit is who gets to decide whether Iraq violated the conditions of the cease-fire. (Para. 2) The UK and most of the international community felt that was a decision the Security Council would have to make. The US felt that any member of the Security Council could make that decision by itself, without involving the rest of the Council. (Para. 2)

14 Mar 2002 : British memo: "YOUR TRIP TO THE US" detailing two days of meetings between Condoleezza Rice and UK foreign policy advisor David Manning. The memo mentions a debate in Washington. It indicates that Rice's desire for regime change was "undimmed" but also that there were signs that Washington was developing "greater awareness of the practical difficulties and political risks." It goes on to describe four questions the US had yet to resolve. None of the questions involves whether or not to invade Iraq. Instead, they focus on how to persuade the international community to undertake an invasion, what resources would be available to carry it out, and what would happen afterwards. When discussing Prime Minister Blair's upcoming visit, it expresses the hope that Blair could use the UK's help as leverage both to influence the military planning, because there was a "real risk" that the US underestimated the difficulties, and to get the US to restart the Middle East Peace Process.

18 Mar 2002 : British memo: "IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN: CONVERSATION WITH WOLFOWITZ" from the British ambassador in Washington to David Manning. The conversation occurred March 17th. It also references the March 14th conversation with Condoleezza Rice. Paragraph 4 indicates that Mr. Wolfowitz differed from other administration officials, because he wanted to emphasize Saddam Hussein's barbarism rather than the weapons of mass destruction. Wolfowitz also emphasized the link between Saddam Hussein and terrorism. (Para. 5) This emphasis is noteworthy given the UK's very different beliefs about the links between Iraq and Al Qaida in the other memos. What is striking about the memo is that, as of this date, the momentum in the Bush administration seemed to be decisively in favor of getting rid of Saddam Hussein. The only alternative the memo discusses is arranging a coup. It does not mention additional weapons inspections or other diplomatic solutions.

22 Mar 2002 : British memo: "IRAQ: ADVICE FOR THE PRIME MINISTER" from Political Director Peter Rickets to the Secretary of State. This memo states that the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programs had not changed. Instead, what had changed was "our" tolerance of them after the 9/11 attack. (Para. 4) Paragraph 5 characterizes the US attempt to link Iraq with Al Qaida as "frankly unconvincing." Finally, paragraph 6 discusses the public relations problems with having a goal of "regime change," because it sounds like a grudge between George Bush and Saddam Hussein. Instead, it suggests a goal of ending the threat of Iraqi WMDs would be more convincing, and suggests President Bush would do better by showing he was more serious about UN Inspectors as a first choice. Inspectors would be a "win/win" situation since they would either further hinder WMD programs or a refusal to allow them would provide stronger justification for other approaches.

25 Mar 2002 : British memo from Jack Straw, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to Prime Minister Tony Blair about an upcoming meeting in Crawford, TX. It advises Mr. Blair that the UK will have a difficult time convincing its "Colleagues." Paragraph 4 states that there is no credible evidence linking Iraq with Al Qaida. Instead, the main thing that has changed is the international community's, and especially the US's, tolerance for the threat Iraq poses. Paragraph 5 points out that the "axis of evil" speech linked the threats from Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, creating the public relations problem of showing that the threat from Iraq is worse enough to justify an invasion. Paragraph 8 mentions that there are others who say an attack on Iraq would be justified regardless of whether or not Iraq allowed weapons inspectors in, suggesting that views within the UK's government were not uniform.

14 May 2002 : UN Security Council replaces 11 year old sanctions on Iraq

23 Jul 2002 : "Downing Street Memo" summarizing a meeting in which "C reported on his recent talks in Washington." Technorati already contains considerable analysis of this memo.

2 Jun 2002 : President Bush introduces defence doctrine of preemption in West Point speach.

Aug 2002 : Iraq invites chief weapons inspector to Baghdad for talks on resuming inspections

12 Sep 2002 : President Bush addresses special session of the UN, calling for it to enforce its own resolution on Iraq

22 Sep 2002 : Prime Minister Blair releases dossier showing Iraq has WMD capabilities

11 Oct 2002 : Congress authorizes attack on Iraq

8 Nov 2002 : UN Security Council approves resolution 1441

18 Nov 2002 : UN weapons inspectors return to Iraq

7 Dec 2002 : Iraq submits documentation as required by resoultion 1441

16 Jan 2003 : UN inspectors discover 11 undeclared empty chemical warheads in Iraq

27 Jan 2003 : Weapons inspector Hans Blix submits report

14 Feb 2003 : Second report by inspector Hans Blix

22 Feb 2003 : Blix orders Iraq to destroy its Al Samoud 2 missiles by March 1 due to illegal range

14 Feb 2003 : US, Britain and Spain submit proposed resolution to Security Council to authorize military force. France, Germany and Russia submit a counter-resolution calling for more intensified inspections.

1 Mar 2003 : Iraq begins destroying Al Samoud 2 missiles

17 Mar 2003 : President Bush delivers ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave the country within 48 hours or face an attack

19 Mar 2003 : President Bush declares war on Iraq.

20 Mar 2003 : US launches Operation Iraqi Freedom with a "decapitation attack."