Wilkins Ice Shelf - Articles - Zimbio

Jakarta (global climate change and the wealth of nations)

Fri, 12 Jul 2008 21:17:36 GMT

posted by ultratupai

East Jakarta, 2008

“It is the business of the future to be dangerous”

-A.N. Whitehead

This morning I decided to turn on the TV and check the news. The first tings I saw along the bottom in the CNN news tickers was “4,118 coaliton forces dead in Iraq.” Of course “coalition forces” are US soldiers by and large.

The war in Iraq is not only a war for oil, as all the Bush adminstration rationales for the war have now been exposed as blatant lies and intentional fraud, it is a war for oil profits.

From AFP

Antarctic ice shelf ‘hanging by thread’: European scientists
2 days ago

PARIS (AFP) - New evidence has emerged that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica is breaking up, in a troubling sign of global warming, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday.

Images taken by its Envisat remote-sensing satellite show that Wilkins Ice Shelf is “hanging by its last thread” to Charcot Island, one of the plate’s key anchors to the Antarctic peninsula, ESA said in a press release.

“Since the connection to the island… helps stabilise the ice shelf, it is likely the breakup of the bridge will put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk,” it said…

…The latest images, taken by Envisat’s radar, say fractures have now opened up in this bridge and adjacent areas of the plate are disintegrating, creating large icebergs.

Scientists are puzzled and concerned by the event, ESA added.

The Antarctic peninsula — the tongue of land that juts northward from the white continent towards South America — has had one of the highest rates of warming anywhere in the world in recent decades.

“Current events are showing that we were being too conservative, when we made the prediction in the early 1990s that Wilkins Ice Shelf would be lost within 30 years. The truth is, it is going more quickly than we guessed.” …> go to article

Brilliant Plans to Destroy the Planet: The World Bank Tackles Climate Change

By Janet Redman, Institute for Policy Studies. Posted July 11, 2008.

President Bush and other leaders of the industrialized world managed to produce a masterfully vague, loophole-ridden statement on climate change at a Group of 8 summit held at a secluded resort on the banks of Lake Toyako in Japan this week.

Meanwhile, thousands of delegates from grassroots movements transformed tranquil Odori Park in downtown Sapporo into the central nervous system of a bottom-up response to ecologically destructive development policies. On the opening day of the G8 summit, activists from every continent joined Japanese environmental and global justice groups in the streets brandishing banners, flags and megaphones. Their message was unambiguous: “Climate Justice, Yes! World Bank, No!” …

…Also offensive to developing countries is that the World Bank is asking the countries least responsible for causing climate change to take out loans to help pay for adapting to the inevitable impacts. According to the G8 statement, rich country “donations” to the Strategic Climate Fund will count toward those nations’ obligations for development aid, stretching an already pitiful sum impossibly thin.

Piling more debt onto many already heavily indebted nations will mean less money for climate-related disaster preparedness, emergency services and food shortages in the future.

World Bank Climate Hypocrisy

The World Bank’s effort to reinvent itself as the global climate crusader is a dangerous charade. With $2 billion already spent on coal, oil and gas projects this year, the World Bank continues to be among the world’s largest multilateral financiers of greenhouse-gas-emitting projects in the developing world.

The new Climate Investment Funds proposed by the United States and others will house the Clean Technology Fund. Donations from rich countries will ostensibly be used to bring low-carbon technologies to developing countries, and clean energy access to their poorest citizens. But environmental groups have taken to calling the Clean Technology Fund the Slightly Less Dirty Technology Fund because of the bank’s outright support for slightly more efficient coal power…

U.S. Role

Fiery protest in Japan was matched by a chilly reception among some members of the U.S. Congress to the Bush administration’s request for a $2 billion donation to the World Bank’s new funds. Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, pointed out at a recent committee hearing on a U.S. contribution that the “World Bank is not seen as an institution friendly to the environment” and that it seems to “spend one day a month protecting the environment and the other 29 days destroying it.” Still, it’s likely that Congress will authorize the money…” …> go to article

Janet Redman is a researcher for the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., where she provides analysis of the international financial institutions’ energy investment and carbon finance activities. She is the author of the recent report “World Bank: Climate Profiteer.”

Cheney’s staff censored EPA, ex-official alleges
Warming’s effects on health at issue

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post / July 9, 2008

WASHINGTON - Members of Vice President Dick Cheney’s staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official on the health threats posed by global warming, a former official of the Environmental Protection Agency said yesterday.

In a letter to Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, Jason Burnett, former EPA deputy associate administrator, said an official from Cheney’s office ordered that six pages be edited out of the testimony last October of Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Several media outlets, including The Washington Post, reported at the time that Gerberding had planned to say that the “CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern,” among other passages. White House officials said then that they questioned the scientific basis of aspects of Gerberding’s draft testimony.

Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the administration feared that Gerberding’s testimony would force the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. The White House has opposed mandatory limits and insisted that voluntary measures and increased research are the best way to address the issue. …> go to article

Is this picture becoming clear?

Follow the Money (an example)

Thomson Financial News
Indonesia’s Adaro sets IPO this week after securing approval
07.06.08, 10:22 PM ET

JAKARTA (Thomson Financial) - Indonesian integrated coal company PT Adaro Energy Tbk said on Monday it has scheduled its $1.3 billion initial public offering for Tuesday through Friday after obtaining approval from the capital market regulator Bapepam-LK.

Adaro is planning to sell 11.3 billion shares or 34 percent of its enlarged capital at 1,100 rupiah a share, making the IPO the biggest ever on the Indonesian stock market.

Adaro Indonesia is the country’s second-biggest coal company after PT Bumi Resources Tbk.

In 2007 Adaro produced 40 million tonnes of coal and sold 36.6 million tonnes, while Bumi sold 55.4 million tonnes of coal.

The shares will be listed on the Indonesian stock exchange on July 16.

The IPO was originally set for June 24 to 26 but was delayed due to issues relating to a share ownership dispute as well as tax and royalty payments.

Adaro Energy currently owns 61.23 percent of Adaro Indonesia, and has a 61.8 percent stake in Indonesia Bulk Terminal and 58.89 percent of Coaltrade Services International Pte. Ltd. …> go to article

RPT-Indonesian “rent-a-mob” queue for $1.3 bln coal IPO
Thu Jul 10, 2008 3:39am

By Andreas Ismar

JAKARTA, July 10 (Reuters) - They didn’t look like your typical investors, as they queued under the scorching sun in Jakarta’s posh business district for shares in Indonesia’s biggest, hottest, initial public offering PT Adaro Energy.

There were women carrying babies, and men in flip-flops, shorts and faded T-shirts — the poor and unemployed, bussed in from Jakarta’s suburbs or slums and paid to stand in line for others.

Adaro Energy, Indonesia’s second-biggest coal miner by output, offered $1.3 billion of shares for sale this week, but most of those are earmarked for connected parties and many other investors are scrambling to get hold of the stock.

That’s where hundreds of people like Hilmawati and Arif come in, earning 25,000-35,000 rupiah ($2.70-$3.80) to queue up for shares on behalf of a man they called “the boss” .

“I’ve been waiting here since 7 o’clock, waiting for them to open at 10,” said Hilmawati, a 30-year-old housewife, as she waited in front of the exhibition hall in Jakarta’s Sudirman Central Business District.

“I’ve been going back and forth three times already. The officials were cruel, they asked so many questions, I just say I came from here,” she said, brandishing an order form from state-owned Danareksa Sekuritas.

“We came in one bus, 50 of us. For one form we got 25,000 rupiah, excluding lunch money, they take care of the transport. Later they will take us back home at four o’clock. If we got the form we give it to the leader, if not we won’t get paid,” said Hilmawati, adding that she knew nothing about Adaro or shares.

The boss uses their names and IDs to apply for multiple share allocations, betting that some, if not all, will be successful.

Brokers in Jakarta admit privately that this is a common practice to get shares in “hot” issues. In a country with millions of poor and unemployed, it is easy to rent a crowd, whether to buy shares or to gather in protest.

Several big foreign investors active in Asia have grumbled that they were shut out of the Adaro offering despite heavy overseas interest in what is seen as an attractively priced offering.

The deal underscores the opacity that sometimes plagues Southeast Asia’s biggest country and gives international investors pause. Red tape and rampant corruption are also frequent complaints.

On Thursday, a few applicants were turned away because of their scruffy attire, but entrepreneurs were at hand, renting out business shirts and ties, so that would-be investors could look the part.

“I cannot get in because of my shoes, they said we must wear leather shoes. They screen us by our looks,” said Arif, an unemployed man in his twenties who said he had at least tried to do some homework on the share offering.

“This is a kind of mining company, you know, coal. Many people know nothing about Adaro, I just tried to find out about it, asking around, hearing what people said.

“We were never informed about this by the boss. What the boss did was just tell us that there’s a share offering, then he gave the print out which contains our name and the company that we should buy.”

Adaro said in a document that 69.15 percent of the 11.14 billion shares offered will be allocated to five investors who already had stakes in PT Adaro Indonesia, a coal miner that Adaro Energy plans to acquire with the proceeds from the IPO. They are Farallon Capital, Kerry Coal, the Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC), Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), and Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Just 22.82 percent of the IPO shares are being allocated to domestic institutions, asset managers, insurers, pension funds, and individuals. (Additional reporting by Harry Suhartono; Editing by Sara Webb) …>go to article

Partners get huge chunk of Indonesia’s Adaro IPO
Wed Jul 9, 2008 11:52am

By Harry Suhartono and Tony Munroe

JAKARTA/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Shares in PT Adaro Energy’s $1.3 billion IPO, Indonesia’s largest offering, were mostly distributed to connected parties, disappointing some domestic investors and global funds.

Several big foreign investors active in Asia have grumbled that they were shut out of the country’s biggest-ever initial public offering despite heavy overseas interest in what is seen as an attractively priced deal.

The deal underscores the opacity that sometimes plagues Southeast Asia’s biggest country.

No international prospectus was issued, which was surprising to some observers given the size of the IPO, but not unheard of, people familiar with the matter said.

Adaro said in a document that 69.15 percent of the 11.14 billion shares offered will be allocated to five investors who already had stakes in PT Adaro Indonesia, a coal miner that Adaro Energy plans to acquire with the proceeds from the IPO. They are Farallon Capital, Kerry Coal, the Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC), Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research), and Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

Just 22.82 percent of the IPO shares are being allocated to domestic institutions, asset managers, insurers, pension funds, and individuals. Schroders Investment Management Indonesia will become the biggest unconnected institutional buyer of the IPO with $12 million worth of shares.

Remaining shares went to foreign investors including Dubai Investment Group, a company document said. …> go to article

Commentary

From my ”comment” on Jakartass post “Blinkers“, July 8, 2008

…I am convinced that the current energy market is being manipulated (in the mix of supply and demand issues and rank speculation) to enrich elites, both in Indonesia and in the United States.

I would argue that the natural resources of Indonesia belong to the Indonesians and not to political cliques or Chinese investors.

… the wealth of the nation (Indonesia) is on a vertical elevator ride to the small percentage of those who sit at the top while it should be spread horizontally to the benefit of society as a whole.

Scarcity of food, fuel and high rates of inflation hurt those at the bottom the most.

Push it to the limits of poverty and indeed as in some places in Indonesia the results are malnutrition and death.

From my ”comment” on Indonesia Matters post “Power Blackouts“, July 12, 2008

“Indonesia is a rich country but we are poor people, why is that?”

I have heard that on more than one occasion from my brother-in-law.

It is part question, part statement, and part indictment.

How can there be an energy crisis in Indonesia when the country is so energy rich?

Globalization, multi-national corporations, and the corrupt political elite have conspired to steal the wealth of Indonesia for the benefit of themselves and at the expense of the national welfare.

This is not inherently an Indonesian problem as we see here in the US record profits being posted by the oil companies the likes which have never been seen in the history of capitalism.

Given the dire warnings we have been given regarding global climate change it seems folly to continue to pursue our fossil fuel way of life but that way of life cannot be changed over night, in a snap.

Oil profits need to be used to stabilize energy needs and invested in alternative sources of energy through developing those technologies through research and development.

More to the point the wealth of the nation needs to be spread horizontally and not vertically.

Right now those profits sit in the bank accounts of the rich and the rest of us can clearly all go to hell.

Indonesia to shift factory hours amid blackouts: vice president
Fri, Jul 11, 2008 AFP

JAKARTA - INDONESIA will move manufacturers’ working hours to weekends in a bid to avoid prolonged rolling blackouts across the country, the vice president said on Friday.

The move, which will also see working hours shifted to off-peak times, has been brought in to avoid burdening the overstrained grid during peak hours.

‘A joint ministerial decree will be signed this afternoon, and will become effective in August,’ Mr Jusuf Kalla told Dow Jones Newsires, without giving further details.

State power monopoly PLN started two weeks of rolling blackouts in Jakarta on Friday after six months of frequent outages on the dense Java-Bali grid cost businesses millions of dollars in losses.

The rolling blackouts in Jakarta are officially due to maintenance work that will interrupt gas supplies to two state-owned generating stations in North Jakarta, but analysts have blamed the country’s crumbling infrastructure.

Analysts have warned electricity shortages could limit economic growth and discourage local and foreign investment in South-east Asia’s largest economy.

‘The economy will not be able to grow above six per cent if (PLN) can’t increase supply by nine per cent annually,’ said Mr Purbaya Sadewa, chief economist at the state-owned investment bank PT Danareksa.

Rising demand for electricity has led to increasing numbers of blackouts across the country in the past few years despite its vast resources of oil, natural gas, coal and geothermal energy.

The power crisis appears to be deteriorating even though only 53 per cent of the archipelago’s 234 million people has access to electricity.

The government is planning to boost capacity by some 30 per cent to about 40,000 megawatts by 2011, but the first new power station is not expected to be operational until mid-2009.” …> go to article

My favorite quote of late is from A. N. Whitehead, “It is the business of the future to be dangerous“.

We will soon see just how dangerous it will be.

Support Jakarta Urban Blog

Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapse 'Imminent'

Thu, 18 Jul 2008 21:29:00 GMT

posted by easyherbal
This from the Independant UK:

Scientists are warning that an Antarctic ice shelf the size of Northern Ireland is on the verge of disintegration, even though it is now the middle of the southern hemisphere's winter.

The European Space Agency says new satellite pictures show that the Wilkins shelf - the largest to be threatened so far - is "hanging by its last thread". Extending for approximately 5,600 square miles, it has been held in place by a thin ice bridge connecting it to an island, but this is now fracturing.

The shelf, which lies near the base of the Antarctic Peninsula, had not been expected to collapse until the early 2020s. It provides further evidence that the planet is warming more quickly than predicted.

Scientists are stunned that it is continuing to melt in the depths of winter, and believe that warm water is welling up from the ocean to attack it from underneath. So far seven shelves on the peninsula have collapsed due to climate change.

On Friday, President Bush - who last week told the G8 summit "Goodbye from the world's greatest polluter" - defied a 2007 ruling by the US Supreme Court to take action on global warming under the Clean Air Act.

©independent.co.uk

Antarctic Ice Continues to Break up....Even in Winter!

Fri, 12 Jul 2008 23:27:00 GMT

posted by thastoner

New satellite images show that an Antarctic ice shelf continues to disintegrate — and even more surprising is that it's happening during the Southern Hemisphere's winter. Experts warned last March, that the Wilkins Ice Shelf was disintegrating more quickly, but they expected that the winter cold would put the trend in a temporary deep freeze.

read more | digg story

Satellite shows antartica ICE caps melting

Mon, 17 Jun 2008 12:14:00 GMT

posted by rsk4you

As, we know the impact of the global warming, now another large plate of ice has broken off the rapidly disintegrating Wilkins Ice Shelf in the Antarctic Peninsula, the above satellite images show.

While the ice shelf, located directly below South America, shrank significantly in previous months, this is the first documented occurrence of an ice shelf collapsing during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter.

The European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite revealed that approximately 62 square miles (160 square kilometers) of ice detached from the ice shelf between May 30 and May 31. This most recent loss narrowed the strip to a width of 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers).

The Wilkins Ice Shelf connects the islands of Charcot and Latady and protects many miles of Antarctica’s ice shelves from additional collapse. A trend of "extraordinary warming" over the past 50 years in Antarctica has caused the loss of several ice shelves, Matthias Braun of Bonn University, and Angelika Humbert of Münster University, said in a statement.

The researchers also warned that the last strip of ice on Wilkins would disappear soon. "The remaining plate has an arched fracture at its narrowest position," they said, "making it very likely that the connection will break completely in the coming days."
Technorati Tags: Pollution, Global warming, Satellite, Research,
Del.Icio.Us Tags: Pollution, Global warming, Satellite, Research,

Enviro News: Earth calls for help!

Fri, 22 Mar 2008 03:32:28 GMT

posted by columbusgreenteam

We often times ignore many of the warnings that the Earth gives us that there is something happening and that the global warming, or climate change is here and is a dangerous thing. These photos are recent proof of the need to act now by the global community.
The article below is quoted from Cnet.
Massive ice shelf collapsing off Antarctica
Scientists are citing "rapid climate change in a fast-warming region of Antarctica" as the cause of an initial collapse of the Wilkins Ice Shelf. The damage got started at the end of February when an iceberg dropped off and triggered the "runaway disintegration" of a 160-square-mile portion of the 5,282-square-mile shelf.
The ice shelf, which scientists speculate has floated in the Antarctic region for hundreds of years, is succumbing to recent rises in temperature in the area--an average of 0.9 degree Fahrenheit every 10 years for the last 50 years.
This series of pictures that show the beginning of the breakup were taken by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer sensor, which flies on its Earth Observing System Aqua and Terra satellites.