Do Hurricanes Even Matter? Well, does keeping your house matter, or your car - does keeping your job matter? [LATEST SATELLITE PICTURE + TRACK]

NVDL: People might think the coverage I've given to weather in the Gulf of Mexico has been hysterical. Does it even matter?

Well, yes it does. Even if you're sitting on a farm in Alice Australia, or Amsterdam in the Netherlands, or shearing a sheep in Nieu Bethesda South Africa it matters.

Any major system that enters the Gulf of Mexico basically threatens the energy harmony - and by harmony I mean both security and the uninterrupted even supply of the stuff - of our planet. Now we've had two storms that have effectively cut the power to two large swathes of Gulf Oil. The energy in the Gulf has taken a hit. Not a worse case scenario hit, but a lot of production has been shut in (even if only due to the evacuations involved).

What has happened is the US energy scenario has taken a hit, and they're already seeing gas prices go up $1 (that's about R8). Still, you might not think that's serious, except when the US's domestic supply of oil takes a hit, where do you think they're going to go shopping to make up the shortfall (and by the way, the shortfall is huge - 5 million barrels per day on 8 year low invenory levels).

Yep, they'll go and buy contracts at the same Oil Mall your country shops at. And whatdoes that do? It shoots world oil prices up A LOT. And what does that do? It creates a lot of geopolitical instability. That's a funny combination of two words that can lead to unfunny scenarios - like war. It raises the price of bread and milk (food in general), it makes the company you work for less profitable, and your chance of being laid off increases. Still think a Hurricane in the Gulf is overhyped? Still think when we talk about melting ice caps, CO2 and climate change it's got not relevance to your life? Everything you do affects everyone around you ultimately, including you.

More from Yahoo: Fears of supply shortages, and actual fuel-production disruptions, resulting from Ike's lashing of vital energy infrastructure led to pump price disparities of as much as $1 a gallon in some states, and even on some blocks.

clipped from news.yahoo.com HOUSTON - From Florida to Tennessee, and all the way up to Connecticut, people far from Hurricane Ike's destruction nonetheless felt one of its tell-tale aftershocks: gasoline prices that surged overnight — to nearly $5 a gallon in some places. Late Saturday the U.S. Minerals Management Service said there were two confirmed reports of drilling rigs adrift in the central Gulf of Mexico. "A lot of it is simply incredible," Blumenthal said, "and a lot of the price increases make no sense economically in terms of supply and demand." The price jumps came after the wholesale price of gasoline soared to $4.85 a gallon Friday in anticipation of Ike's arrival. "By the time it hit 6 o'clock news and 11 o'clock news it was like snow was falling and milk and bread were flying off the shelves." "People are outraged," Daugherty said. "Everyone is having a hard time understanding all of this."

The Slippery Slope: Life just got a lot more expensive

So tonight the price of petrol in South Africa goes up 50 cents. Let's put just tonight's price rise into perspective. For every 2 litres of petrol you put into your tank, you pay an extra R1. So if you put 50 litres of petrol in your car, you've basically bought an extra movie ticket, or a hamburger, with the extra cash - except of course you never get to watch the movie, or eat the hamburger. And this happens every time you fill up from tonight onwards.

On SABC TV news the fuel price hike was the top story. There is a lot of concern about the impact, with economists citing long haul trucking companies and bus companies starting to struggle. Plenty more is on the cards - airlines for one, supermarkets for another. Then, 10 minutes later into the bulletin, car makers start whining about declining production. The stats show year on year figures declining from 50 000 units a month, to 30-something thousand. However, they say, export volumes are still growing, and are now at 23 000 units a month? Errrrr...I wonder how many people have any idea how incredibly stupid the psychology is here. We don't like the fuel prices going up, and now we're not happy because we can't make more cars. Can anyone be any more cluelessand disconnected to reality?

The fuel price is going up - oh no, why, anger. Then - production in car volumes is going up - oh no, why, anger. I'd really like to know - if SA produces 50 000 units - that's cars that drink petrol - a month, how many units (that's cars that drink petrol) do other economies make, like South Korea, and Japan, and Germany, and the USA and China, and India. Every new vehicle is a new user. That's not just demand continuing as it is now, but growing demand for that new vehicle for the rest of its productive life. And of course the last thing anyone is thinking is - is it such a great idea to continue on the way we are going? I mean, are things ever likely to improve if we just continue building cars? Shall I answer the question for you? No.

I've also seen apparently intelligent journalists, economists - experts - saying that 'we can't do anything about high fuel prices'. Ordinary people say this a lot too. Bullshit. Actually, we can do a lot. Price is about supply and demand. Supply is struggling. Yet no one is starting conversations about changing our demand. Changing what you do every single day. From the ordinary things - like how far you drive to work, to car pooling, efficient driving habits (reduce speed, pump your cars tyres, take out stuff that doesn't need to be in your car) to the more extreme, such as cancelling NASCAR and Formula 1, restructuring our living arrangements (where w elive, how we live), investing in rail. You just don't hear that because everyone assumes - incorrectly - that this can somehow carry on and on. It's called wishful thinking. It's fantasy. It comes from watching too many movies and TV. It comes from a public used to getting what it wants, used to convenience, and utterly unused being told to change, being told to do something about an obvious problem.

The fact that obesity now is one of the world's chronic problems, while people are starving to death in other parts of the world, tells you how shizophrenic and sick our thinking is. It's not a normal world.

While everyone hopes that prices will magically come down, and the Antartic will start spewing oil, people just don't get that that's not going to happen. We are experiencing a major, and fundamental shift. We can adapt, or have those changes forced upon us. The question is, when do we wake up to reality?

When I drove back to Johannesburg on Sunday, at night, I got a gut feel sense about what impact oil actually has. I saw a faraway flame turning a large amount of sky around a Sasolburg chimney into sulphurous yellow daylight. The plant is designed to refine fossil fuels into stuff we can put in our cars, and burn, stuff that goes into our homes to light up our TV's and lights. It occurred to me, driving over the dark highway, that every light on every car, even the lights that show us our speed, whether we are braking, the galaxy of city lights making the sky glow a dull moony white above the city - every single light burns thanks to oil and coal pumped out of the ground, sucked and dredged out of the Earth and burned. And once it is gone, it's gone. We're burning vast amounts every day now, and every day, more and more machines line up to be marched into service.

On the highway I felt I couldn't imagine the huge cityscape of Johannesburg's lights, the long ruby snakes and glittering rows of diamonds burning this bright for much longer. And that gut feel happens to be on the money. Eskom has just announced a new load shedding schedule. And I predict that this year we will experience fuel shortages. That means the equivalent of power cuts, except we won't be able to power (run) our cars. For a few days at a time. And then a week. And then longer. It will happen this year, and if I am wrong, then I'll be glad. But it will happen eventually, and probably sooner than we think. Already experts are citing 'surprise'. The surprises have just started.

TIME: How Hunger Could Topple Regimes

The idea of the starving masses driven by their desperation to take to the streets and overthrow the ancient regime has seemed impossibly quaint since capitalism triumphed so decisively in the Cold War. Since then, the spectacle of hunger sparking revolutionary violence has been the stuff of Broadway musicals rather than the real world of politics. And yet, the headlines of the past month suggest that skyrocketing food prices are threatening the stability of a growing number of governments around the world. Ironically, it may be the very success of capitalism in transforming regions previously restrained by various forms of socialism that has helped create the new crisis.

More.

NVDL: I been tellin ya!

Shock for food prices as wheat futures rocket

THE price of wheat on the JSE futures exchange broke through R4000 a ton yesterday to a new record on supply concerns, making increases in the price of bread and other foodstuffs inevitable.

More.

After the Oil Crisis, a Food Crisis? (TIME)

"Worldwide food reserves are at their lowest in 35 years right now. One in six already don't have enough to eat. Nearly every region of the world has experienced drastic food price inflation this year. "

Is the world headed for a food crisis? India, Mexico and Yemen have seen food riots this year. Argentines boycotted tomatoes during the country's recent presidential elections when the vegetable became more expensive than meat; and in Italy, shoppers organized a one-day boycott of pasta to protest rising prices. In late October, the Russian government, hoping to ease tensions ahead of parliamentary elections early next year, announced a price freeze for milk, bread and other foods through the end of January.

What's the cause for these shortages and price hikes?
Expensive oil, for the most part.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reported last week that, at nearly $100 a barrel, the price of oil has sent the cost of food imports skyrocketing this year. Add in escalating crop prices, the FAO warned, and a direct consequence could soon be an increase in global hunger — and, as a consequence, increased social unrest. Faced with internal rumblings, "politicians tend to act to protect their own nationals rather than for the good of all," says Ali Ghurkan, a Rome-based FAO analyst who co-authored the report. Because of the lack of international cooperation, he adds, "Worldwide markets get tighter and the pain only lasts longer."

What's more, worldwide food reserves are at their lowest in 35 years, so prices are likely to stay high for the foreseeable future. "Past shocks have quickly dissipated, but that's not likely to be the case this time," says Ghurkan. "Supply and demand have become unbalanced, and... can't be fixed quickly."

The world's food import bill will rise in 2007 to $745 billion, up 21% from last year, the FAO estimated in its biannual Food Outlook. In developing countries, costs will go up by a quarter to nearly $233 billion. The FAO says the price increases are a result of record oil prices, farmers switching out of cereals to grow biofuel crops, extreme weather and growing demand from countries like India and China. The year 2008 will likely offer no relief. "The situation could deteriorate further in the coming months," the FAO report cautioned, "leading to a reduction in imports and consumption in many low-income food-deficit countries."

Hardest hit will likely be sub-Saharan Africa, where many of the world's poorest nations depend on both high-cost energy as well as food imports. Cash-poor governments will be forced to choose between the two, the FAO says, and the former has almost always won out in the past. That means more people will go malnourished. Further exacerbating the problem are the current record prices for freight shipping brought on by record fuel prices. An estimated 854 million people, or one in six in the world, already don't have enough to eat, according to the World Food Programme.

For more, go here.

NVDL: The article is posed as a question. It is not a question because there is no question about it. The effects are present, and obvious. The question to ask is when will we see changes in local agriculture. Hypermarkets have destroyed local production capacity. That needs to be regenerated. The chilling thing is, as growing and buying food becomes more expensive, the last thing we're going to be able to afford is writing off crop after crop because of climate change associated weather (droughts, floods, storms). Yet if we are sensible, we will factor this into the entire equation. The result is a singular prospect for a large proportion of humanity: Austerity

North Sea surge brings flood risk (BBC NEWS)

A storm in the North Sea has left Britain and the Netherlands facing the worst flood threat in decades with tidal surges predicted early on Friday.

Flood defences have been put on alert on the entire Dutch coast and flood warnings are in place for the eastern and northern coasts of Britain.

A tidal wave in 1953 killed more than 2,000 people in both countries.

Parts of UK struck by tornadoes
Thousands evacuated in flood zone
New insect species arrives in UK


Oil platforms have been closed off the Norwegian coast and gales are expected in Germany and Denmark.

The Dutch transport ministry said this was the first time since 1976 the whole North Sea coast was under alert.

Maritime traffic in Rotterdam was halted, as the authorities closed the giant Maeslant barrier that guards entrance to the largest port in Europe for the first time since its construction in the 1990s.

It took half-an-hour for the two doors of the barrier across the Nieuwe Waterweg to meet, spanning a channel 360 metres wide.

Rotterdam will remain closed until 1700GMT on Friday, a port spokesman said.

One-third of the land mass of the Netherlands is under sea level.

Flood warnings

In Britain, the Thames River and Dartford Creek barriers are being shut as waters are forecast to surge 1.5 metres (5 feet) above normal sea levels.

Families along the Norfolk coast have been protecting their homes

UK government warned large areas of Norfolk and Kent coasts were at risk of severe flooding and the Met Office warned of gusts of up to 145km/h (90mph) for the Orkney and Shetland islands in Scotland.
The storm surge is expected to peak around dawn on Friday, and several hundred people have left their homes near Great Yarmouth in Norfolk.

Severe gale warnings were issued in Germany and Denmark, with wind gusts of up to 125km/h (80mph) expected.

In Germany, regions around the Elbe and Elm rivers were under flood warnings.

The North Sea storm affected oil industry in Norway, the fifth largest exporter of crude in the world, with the closure of oil platforms off its coast.

Norway's oil production of 220,000 barrels per day is expected to be slashed by 10% possibly leading to increases in the price of crude, already at record levels, experts say.

NVDL: The UK is basically the world's canary in terms of climate change. It has thrived so far thanks to an exceptional belt of warming water being diverted towards its shores - we all know the schpiel. We know that polar melt will shut it down. Since ice sheets the size of South Africa (or Texas and California combined) have melted and not frozen back, it's logical to assume that it is only a question of time before the British Isles reverts to a more Ice Age type of climate. That said, perhaps we will first see a temporary phase of extraordinary warming, as we are seeing in Canada, and extreme storms, as is also the case in Canada (spewing tornadoes and the like).

Once again we have this apparently unique situation where the world's weather has an impaqct on global fuel prices, and that has an effect on every person. The next time you catch yourself wondering where you fit in, in all this, remember that every time you drive your car, you and everyone else is doing your bit to inject energy (heat) into the atmosphere. We're now at a point where there is so much energy in the atmosphere, that extreme weather becomes the convention.

Yesterday I submitted HOLIDAY to PanMacMillan. It's obviously encouraging to hear that one person who read my book, then read it again 3 times. Another woman who read it had nightmares. A teenager read it within 2-3 days. It basically paints a picture of living in the world where weather patterns have gone beyond tipping point, and we see the atmosphere basically transitioning into a slow chemical reaction.

EPH:Cold snap, severe drought put farms under pressure

From Herald Correspondent:

A “TERRIBLE situation could become worse”, say Western Cape producers, concerned fruit may become scarce and meat prices “skyrocket” as hundreds of farmers battle drought and hundreds more recover from last week‘s big freeze.

In the Central Karoo, the situation is so bad that even one of Africa‘s most drought-adapted antelopes, the gemsbok, are “dropping like flies”.

Fruit harvests on more than 500 farms were damaged, some completely ruined, because of last week‘s cold weather and the agriculture department said up to 600 Central Karoo farms were suffering because of a severe drought. The situation was “very bad and cause for concern”.

For more go here.

NVDL: There's the rub. With fuel inputs already increasing, we can no longer avoid other external factors complicating food growing (and making it even more expensive). Like the weather. Unfortunately, both are projected to continue to deteriorate, and not over the next year, for the foreseeable duration of our lifetimes.