Entangled States

The App you ought to have

Do you have an iPhone? An iPad? Do you support the One Campaign?

I spent time in Swaziland. Many of my friends are either from the Sudan or work with people in the Sudan. Here in Phoenix we have a number of cathedral members who work on the southern Mexican border with Guatemala. In all those places the situation is dire because an epidemic of preventable diseases, lack of basic infrastructure and extreme poverty. The MDG movement is a response to these needs.

The One Campaign is an organization of nearly two million members that are organizing to respond, and more importantly being advocates for a coordinated governmental response by countries around the world.

If you've been meaning to get involved in the advocacy work, but haven't known where to start, and you've got an iOS device (or access to one) then you need to grab a copy of the ONE app.

"ONE Campaign is essentially a call-to-action app. It lists a number of political issues or advocacy movements and gives you instant access to proven projects that are working to combat the issues (like vaccines for children, for example). You can then enlist your Twitter or Facebook friends to help spread the word and join movements that are important to you. But the best thing about the app is that it gives you instant tools so you can actually take political action. With a few taps you can call your Congressman or sign a petition to support your cause. The app knows who your Congressional leaders are based on the zip code you enter. So many political action apps are solely news-focused. They tell us the bad things that are happening and leave us angry or distressed. The ONE app allows us to take productive action on an issue as easily as we download a song. ONE Campaign is a free download."

More here.

It's time to rethink America's policy on nuclear weapons.

There's an article in the Wall Street Journal today by a number of former Cold War leaders (including George Schultz, Sam Nunn and Henry Kissinger) that calls for the U.S. to rethink its M.A.D. nuclear weapons policy. Not a dove among the lot.

While you can't access that article without a subscription, you can read the open letter at the www.nti.org Here are some of the key paragraphs:

"Today, the Cold War is almost 20 years behind us, but many leaders and publics cannot conceive of deterrence without a strategy of mutual assured destruction. We have written previously that reliance on this strategy is becoming increasingly hazardous. With the spread of nuclear weapons, technology, materials and know‐how, there is an increasing risk that nuclear weapons will be used.

It is not possible to replicate the high‐risk stability that prevailed between the two nuclear superpowers during the Cold War in such an environment. The growing number of nations with nuclear arms and differing motives, aims and ambitions poses very high and unpredictable risks and increased instability.

[...]Recently, the four of us met at the Hoover Institution with a group of policy experts to discuss the possibilities for establishing a safer and more comprehensive form of deterrence and prevention in a world where the roles and risks of nuclear weapons are reduced and ultimately eliminated. Our broad conclusion is that nations should move forward together with a series of conceptual and practical steps toward deterrence that do not rely primarily on nuclear weapons or nuclear threats to maintain international peace and security."

Read the full letter here.

Having passed the renewal to the START treaty late last year, perhaps we can start to call on Congress and the President to return again to the issue of a Comprehensive Test Ban (CTB). If we sign on, we will have a great deal of moral authority to then urge the sorts of nations we're most concerned about (Iran, North Korea, Libya(?)) to join the ban as well.

Swazi government threatens torture against "foreigners".

I haven't written much about Swaziland recently as the situation in that small country in Southern Africa hasn't changed very much. But I received this article from the primary English language newspaper this morning.

The short version appears to be that the Swazi King is becoming increasingly frustrated with the low level unrest in the populace. There have been increasing calls for governmental reform as the economic and public health situation has deteriorated. Rather than deal with the reformers directly, the government is suggesting that the real problem is the "foreigners" who advocate for democracy among the native Swazi tribes.

So in response the government is looking to an old tribal punishment, flogging the feet of offenders with spikes and effectively crippling them for a long while. This has the advantage of stopping the protestor and forcing his or her supporters to support him or her while they recover from their wounds. An effective and medieval response.

It will probably be effective in the short run, but totally useless in the long run given that it does nothing to respond to the real issue.

What we can do is get the word out that this is happening, and highlight the violence against peaceful protestors when it does.

Full article after the jump:

Learning to listen to the locals

What follows is an essay I just wrote for a Diocese of Arizona project which is collecting reflections from people who have been involved in various MDG projects over the past. Our diocesan MDG committee is going to publish these both in hope that other in the diocese might be inspired to get involved, and also so that local parish and mission committees might use them to guide their own decision making process. (I'll try to remember to share a link to the full collection once we have them collated.)

My first startling impression of Swaziland came when I stepped out of the airport into the darkness of the night into which we had landed. The car to pick us up was not there waiting for us, and the airport was closing down for the night. The guards told us that we could not wait inside the compound, so we gathered up our luggage and started walking out to the main road hoping to either meet our ride there, or find a phone to make a call.

In the darkness, with gravel crunching underfoot, I looked up. It’s something I do reflexively as a former stargazer. Seeing the stars in the familiar positions makes me feel centered no matter what is happening around me. Their slow progress across the sky is always a touchstone of stability for me when I’m not feeling particularly secure. Except this time. When I looked up, things were all our of sorts. It was a combination of my first time to the Southern Hemisphere, with new constellations, and the effect of seeing all the familiar constellations upside down. It took me moment to recognize Orion. There he was, warding off Taurus the Bull, backed up by his faithful dogs, but he was standing on his head!

The idea of the familiar standing on its head became sort of repeated theme during my visit. Things that appeared familiar turned out, when more closely examined, to be topsy-turvy according to my expectations. Things that seemed totally foreign to me turned out to actually be closely to related to things I recognized once I took the time to see.

This was driven home as I began to speak to people around the country-side who were involved in Swazi Hospice at Home, the NGO I had come to support during visit. The program allows people who are dying of HIV and AIDS to die relatively comfortably at home surrounded by their family and friends. This is not just important to them, but to the whole health care system in the country because if the dying are not cared for at home, the all too few hospital beds in the country would be wholly given over to these patients and not by people who, frankly speaking, have a chance of recovery. In a country where 250,000 people have access to only one small clinic (a two room 1500 square foot affair) with 2 beds, this is a matter of life and death for many.

My immediate response to seeing this desperate shortage of hospital beds was to begin to plan some sort of response that would raise sufficient money to open clinics all across the country. But that wouldn’t be much help without trained medical personnel, medicines, equipment, transportation, or just electricity… In speaking with the local healthcare providers, and with the local committee who were charged with expanding the existing clinic, I learned how great the challenges were, and how little effectiveness throwing money at the problem would have. Much important was to listen to them explain why a Hospice program made so much more sense to their community.

There were numerous reasons. First and foremost was that by a number of different methodologies, it appeared that something between 35 to 45% of the adult population was HIV positive, and expected to develop full blown AIDS and likely die within the decade. The anti retro-virus drugs simply aren’t available in the Swazi countryside, and even if they were, the people suffering from AIDS couldn’t afford them, and wouldn’t have access to the necessary medical monitoring. Better people should live out their last days as comfortably as possible, and give those who are not infected with the disease, especially the children, an opportunity to access what health care is available, than to have even more people die unnecessarily because the inadequate health care system becomes overwhelmed. The second reason was not one I would have ever imagined…

Most of the land in Swaziland belongs not the individual but to the tribe. Families are allowed to live on plots of land as long as they are farming it and giving a portion of the crops to the chief, the King and to the tribal council. If they are not able to produce from the land, it is taken away from them and given to someone who can. Most often it is given to a member of the chief’s family. As long as an adult with children is able to remain on the land, the children can farm the land. If the adult leaves, the children would mostly likely have to as well, which would mean they would lose their families land and any means of independent support. There is no effective social safety net in Swaziland so losing the ability to raise their own food means that the families children are likely to die soon after their parent or parents.

Caring for people at home rather than in the hospital in Swaziland is less about the emotional needs and dignity of the dying as is the case in the developed world and more about trying to keep the whole of society from collapsing.

I only learned this by learning to listen to the local people who were doing the actual hands on work that our MDG group was supporting. It was the quintessential experience of the familiar standing on its head. I think my reflection on these sorts of experiences have informed my own continuing work on the Diocesan MDG committee and my coordination with that of the Cathedral’s committee. We must learn to allow the people on site to propose their own appropriate solutions. Our western solutions won’t alway work, and will sometimes make the situation much more dire.

Learning to listen in this way was for me one of the great and primary gifts that I received from my involvement in that project back in 2002.

Violence and persecution increasing in Swaziland

A few years ago I traveled to Swaziland as part of an effort of my then parish (Trinity in Bethlehem PA) to support the work of Swazi Hospice at Home. You can read my travel diary and see pictures from the trip here.

During the trip, especially during my journey to the southern parts of the country, there were hints that the government was beginning to prepare for a period of civil unrest. Around the time of my visit the presenting issue was the question of the proper relationship between the new Swazi constitution and the claimed absolute authority of the King. (King Mswati is sadly mostly famous in the West for the growing size of his harem.)

While we traveled it was hard to miss an obvious increasing military presence. While most of the population were very thin and wan looking, the military and police guards were large, strong and well equipped. Clearly they were not having any trouble finding good food to eat.

More ominously, I started noticing the big black anti-riot trucks (the Black Mariahs) that the South African government had built during the time of anti-apartheid demonstrations. I was told that the King and his tribal councils had decided to start purchasing them and deploying them around the country. They were parked in the forest - but not too far in. They were certainly not hidden...

I'd heard over the past couple of years that there has been an increasing threat of violence. But when I asked about it I kept being told that people were exaggerating.

Well perhaps not so much after all.

I just received an email press release this morning from Africa Contact. It reads in part:

The brutality of the Swazi regime, led by the autocratic King Mswati, has always been evident, as documented by numerous reports from Amnesty International. This brutality has recently escalated, however, to include a desperate hunt for anything or anyone carrying the name of Pudemo or Swayoco, Swaziland’s leading democratic party and its youth league. The latest example of this brutality is the death in detention of Pudemo activist Sipho Jele. Sipho Jele was in good health when arrested and detained on 1 May for wearing a Pudemo t-shirt but was found dead in his cell the next day. The police claimed that he had committed suicide but Jele’s aunt, a former nurse who saw the body the next day, insists that his face was bruised and battered and that any claims of suicide are manifestly and evidently untrue. Jele’s torture and death at the hands of Swaziland’s police forces is unfortunately by no means the first time such torture and deaths in detention in Swazi prisons have occurred, and we are worried that the student leader, Pius Vilakati, who was at Jele’s funeral but has not been seen since, could be the next victim of the Swazi regime if the international society does not act quickly by putting pressure on the Swazi regime.

The torture and deaths in detention of pro-democracy activists are chillingly reminiscent of similar occurrences during in apartheid South Africa, where deaths in detention were also routinely claimed to have been self-inflicted, and the response from the international community of governments, civil society movements and NGOs should therefore be equally vigorous in demanding observance of the rule of law and democratisation in Swaziland.

The full email follows after the jump.

Please do join me in keeping the gentle people of Swaziland in your prayers. The country with the highest incident of HIV/AIDS infection in the world (mostly because of government inaction) surely needs good and wise leadership. Not a crackdown on democratic activists.

Cinco de Mayo 2010

 Just back from our Cinco de Mayo party at the Cathedral this afternoon. The various services of the Cathedral family joined forces at noon, with Mariachi's and Folk dancers to celebrate our Mexican American Heritage.

The weather was unusually windy and cool - a real Spring this year in Phoenix - but we managed anyhow. Here's hoping that someone will share a movie of the dancers so you can get a better sense of what things were like.

In the meantime you can see some quick photos that I took here.

The situation in Haiti

There was some good reporting about the heroic ministry of the Episcopal bishop of Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake on Friday. The Wall Street Journal talked about the "island of organization" in the midst of chaos that he had managed to create.

Kendall Harmon points to this video from the WSJ this afternoon:

The Episcopal Cafe has this letter from the bishop calling for help to be delivered through Episcopal Relief and Development:

I am writing to you from the tent city we have set up behind the rubble of College Ste. Pierre, our marvelous senior secondary school that is no more. As you know, we have gathered approximately 3,000 people here alone. Across the land, the Diocese of Haiti has set up at least 21 refugee camps, caring for more than 23,000 people.

In this letter, I wish to make clear to the Diocese of Haiti, to Episcopal Relief and Development and to all of our partners that Episcopal Relief and Development is the official agency of the Diocese of Haiti and that we are partners working hand-in-hand in Haiti’s relief and recovery efforts.

I also am announcing in this letter that I am appointing The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley, Appointed Missionary of The Episcopal Church, to work directly with ERD on my behalf. I am asking all partners in The Episcopal Church to communicate directly with Rev. Stanley, so as to keep communications with the Diocese of Haiti open. Rev. Stanley is to communicate and work with ERD on my behalf.

In addition, I am asking that all of our partners in the Presbyterian Church USA work directly with ERD, with Rev. Stanley as the central communications person. PCUSA has worked with us for many years, and we are deeply grateful for their compassion and their commitment to the people of Haiti.

We in the Diocese of Haiti have a vision and a plan for this relief and recovery effort. We know the situation on the ground, we are directing emergency relief to those who need it most, and we already are making plans and moving forward to help our people. Since the earthquake struck, we have been and will continue to work closely with your two representatives here, Ms. Katie Mears and Ms. Kirsten Muth. I have complete confidence in you and your agency.

Finally, I wish to make it plain: I know that many of our partners wish to come to Haiti right now to help. Please tell them that unless they are certified professionals in relief and recovery, they must wait. We will need them in the months and years to come, but at this point, it is too dangerous and too much of a burden for our people to have mission teams here.

Please tell our partners, the people of The Episcopal Church, the people of the United States and indeed the people of the world that we in Haiti are immensely grateful for their prayers, their support and their generosity. This is a desperate time in Haiti; we have lost so much. But we still have the most important asset, the people of God, and we are working continuously to take care of them.

He writes to us all in the midst of what is being described as unimaginable loss.

A group of us have been scrounging about to find pictures of the now destroyed murals at Holy Trinity that told the story of the Bible with a wonderful, local Haitian flavor. You can see some of what has been found here. The New York Times has an article about what the loss of this sort of cultural heritage means to the Haitian people.

There's this too about the ruins of the Episcopal Cathedral:

Craig Uffman: Where Was God in the Earthquake?

There's a helpful piece up on Craig's blog that sketches out an answer to the question that I think will be on the mind of many this weekend as they sit in Church. If God does not will evil upon us, then how can God abide such horror such as we see today in Haiti?

"Theologian David Bentley Hart offers the best answer I know in his book The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?  He wrote it upon reflecting on the great tsunami that struck Asia in 2004.  Hart reminds us that 'we are to be guided by the full character of what is revealed of God in Christ.  For, after all, if it is from Christ that we are to learn how God relates himself to sin, suffering, evil, and death, it would seem that he provides us little evidence of anything other than a regal, relentless, and miraculous enmity: sin he forgives, suffering he heals, evil he casts out, and death he conquers.  And absolutely nowhere does Christ act as if any of these things are part of the eternal work or purposes of God.'

As we participate vicariously in the tormented tears of young girls, lost and alone in the Haitian darkness, as our hearts pour out tears for the thousands of sons and daughters and mothers and fathers who have died so suddenly and shockingly, and as we turn to our task of being the loving and living hands of Christ in response to this tragedy,  let us never forget the urgent truth about God that it is our vocation to proclaim: God does not will our sickness or our death; God does not will that evil be done; God has conquered evil and death through the Cross.  This is the meaning of the empty tomb. This is our Easter faith.  As Hart says so well, 'Ours is, after all, a religion of salvation.  Our faith is in a God who has come to rescue his creation from the absurdity of sin, the emptiness and waste of death, the forces - whether calculating malevolence or imbecile chance - that shatter living souls; and so we are permitted to hate these things with perfect hatred.'

Where, then, is God in the earthquake? Hart puts it well: 'As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God but the face of his enemy.... for [ours] is a faith that set us free from optimism long ago and taught us hope instead....rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, [God] will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes - and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and he that sits upon the throne will say, 'Behold, I make all things new.''"

Read the full article here.

Please donate to Haiti Earthquake Response

As you all know this morning Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake late yesterday afternoon. The reports are still spotty but they are uniformly grim. Many, probably tens of thousands of people have been killed and more are injured and in need of emergency assistance.

The Episcopal Church, who's largest diocese is in Haiti, has set up a special fund to channel aid to the country.

"To donate to the Haiti Fund, visit www.er-d.org or call 1-800-334-7626, ext. 5129. Gifts can be mailed to Episcopal Relief & Development, PO Box 7058, Merrifield, VA 22116-7058. Please put ‘Haiti Fund’ in the memo line of all checks. In addition, Episcopal Relief & Development is preparing a bulletin insert, which will be available on its website."

Go here to find a direct link to quickly donate.

Your gift will make a huge difference. I've already given, and will probably give again as soon as my wife and I can talk about amounts. You should too.

Climate change God's judgement not Man's fault?

The BBC has a report this morning on a growing sentiment in parts of the developing world that the climate change that they are witnessing is not due to the actions of humankind. They are a result of God's judgement upon us. And as such, there is nothing we can change that will have any effect on the situation other than pray for help.

From the end of the article:

"Climate change is a global issue transcending national boundaries, but impacting first on those who can least afford to cope with the consequences.

The 'God not man' cry from the lady in Kenya's northern reaches illustrates a common problem relating to understanding the underlying causes, and underscores the incapability of people in such situations to deal with the crisis that has impacted so severely on their communities.

As Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, notes:

'Climate change will bring massive ecological and economic challenges… therefore, alleviating dehumanising poverty will become even more difficult.'"

Read the full article here.

The point the article is trying to make, but doesn't really in the end, is that attributing the climate changes to God leads us to think that God is going to be the one who's going to reverse them. It's the very definition of magical thinking and is not likely to be very effective.

It doesn't seem all that different, to me at least, than the line of thought attributed to people like the former Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, who believed the rapture was so imminent that there was no reason for Christians to conserve natural resources. Instead, the reasoning went, profligate use of the resources was a sign of strong faith that God was coming soon and would remake the earth and effectively restore everything we had used.

Not unlike using the ever-increasing equity in our homes to pay off our ever increasing credit card debt...

The BBC article really doesn't suggest any solutions to the problem of magical thinking among the poor in the developing world other than to "harness the power of youth". But as the sixties remind all of us who grew up in them, that doesn't really guarantee anything. Youth can act destructively as likely as they might act constructively. Such is the way of mankind.

Better, for Christians at least, would be to emphasize the meaning of stewardship among the Christian people in the developing world. We should be encouraging them to expect their governments to find ways to live gently in their environment, to do their collective best to steward the natural riches of the nations in which they live. I remember when I was in Swaziland, talking with local farmers who had begun to realize the toll that western style, petrochemical based agriculture was taking on their tribal lands. The old style tradition of small gardens, compost and regular crop rotation was much more effective at producing enough to eat, and was sustainable.

Of course that will require those of us who live in the developed world to put our money where our mouth is first. Otherwise why should anyone listen to us? We'd be like the Pharisees who bind others with burdens too great to bear while finding loopholes to excuse ourselves.

It will probably require us to downsize the homes we live in, move back into the cities closer to the places we work and shop, buy smaller cars, etc. In other words, live more like European society has been living for years. It's really not an awful thing to contemplate if we put it into that context is it?

Will our actions make a difference? There's a legitimate disagreement going on about whether the climate change we are observing is caused by human actions or not. But if not, it makes sense to act conservatively so as to try our best not hasten the rate of the change. Plus living as if it were will help us to start focusing our attention on what might be needed to survive what might come.

It's not all that bad really. Imagine living in a small German, French or Italian city, or in one of the villages that surround them. What's to fear in that future?

I've never seen anything like this before - a service in four languages on Advent 4

This was the scene yesterday at the fourth of our five regular Sunday liturgies. I was at the first three and took some people out to lunch and had to miss this service, but I was there for the opening. I'm only fluent in one language - there were four in use during the service - so I really wasn't qualified to be at the altar.

From Greta Huls account of the service:

Members of the Sudanese congregation lead the processional with singing and dancing accompanied by the sound of pounding drums. They also offered music during the offertory and the recessional. Mariachis provided most of the additional service music.

The Rev. Anderia Arok of St. Paul's gave the sermon while The Rev. Canon Cameron Guerrero of Catedral de la Trinidad translated his Dinka-accented English into Spanish - which lead to a little confusion and a few laughs at times.

The Rev. Canon Licia Baldi Affer of Trinity Cathedral celebrated the Eucharist and offered the Bendición in her native Italian.

More information, with pictures here. Thanks Greta for putting up the article!

Help the Cathedral support Habitat for Humanity

Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix is one of a number of Episcopal congregations in the central part of Arizona who, together with Central Arizona Habitat for Humanity, build two houses a year in the Phoenix metro region and one house in the developing world.

For the Cathedral to be part of this, we need to pony up our share of the cost of the houses. Rather than use money that we spend on clean water projects, orphan education, free clinics for the homeless, etc, we are going to try to raise this money independently of our general budget. We are doing this with the help of Tim Sprague, a Cathedral member and one of the musicians in the local band "Crisis".

We're going to be putting on a big block party in central Phoenix, right next to the Roosevelt and Central Light Rail station on Nov 14. If you're in the city on that night, come and join us! Free food, music and dancing. Honor bar for those wish to fortify themselves against the cold. Good times for all.

You can buy your tickets in advance at Rocksupport.org. If you can't come, you can still donate!

Jon Trott of the Jesus People (USA) on the idolotry of "community"

I stumbled across this interview with Jon Trott while surfing the web this morning waiting for an appointment. Trott was one of the founders of the "Jesus People" which began in the sixties, achieved national recognition in the seventies (at least I remember reading about them) and today represents a network of people living in intentional Christian community in Chicago.

The interview in Christianity Today is about the lessons he's learned along the way as he's struggled to find sustainable models for Christian community. He talks about how younger folks are using different sources (like the Rule of St. Benedict) to augment the tools that his group initially had.

I was particularly struck by this quote from the interview sounding a note of warning:

"Community can become its own goal. So the biggest thing I'd warn anybody about community is to not worship it. A community does not exist for itself. It's there for others. I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the one who said that if a community is not for the world, then that community is no earthly good. In other words, community is ultimately a tool for ministry."

Read the full article here.

There's something to be said for this warning. It's a recent trend in the Church, and in the Episcopal Church especially, that community for its own sake is the rationale for the life of the parish. Creating community so that people have a place to call home is wonderful thing and, as the mega-hit "Friends" demonstrates, a common need felt by young urban professionals that the Episcopal Church often attracts.

But Trott's got it just write when he warns that community just for community's sake is a form of idol worship. (Or Bonhoeffer had it right if you prefer.)

One of my mentors, Fr. Karney, used to say that a church couldn't be a church if it didn't have someone to love. I've found that he was absolutely right more times than I care to remember. Sometimes in very painful ways.

That's part of the motivation I suppose for the Episcopal Church's involvement in the MDG's. I just hope we remember that the MDG's are, for the Church, a means to an end and not the end in and of themselves.

Naco Procession (video blog)

Here's the first public video that a new initiative at our Cathedral has produced:

Seems to me the video speaks for itself.

If you're looking to get a sense of what's going on down at the borders, this gives you a sense more profoundly than anything I could possibly write about the situation.

This is an edit from the full 25 minute DVD. If you're interested in getting a copy, drop me a note and we'll take care of you.

Here's some of the background.

(And a picture of one of our cathedral clergy participating in the procession.)

Here's the link to our "channel" on YouTube. We're planning on putting a bunch of additional videos up there in the coming months.

Switchgrass-based Ethanol

Here's some encouraging news in the bio-fuel area. Researchers have found that fuel made from grass is able to provide significantly more energy for fuel than is required to grow the grass.

" Switchgrass grown for biofuel production produced 540 percent more energy than needed to grow, harvest and process it into cellulosic ethanol, according to estimates from a large on-farm study by researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Results from the five-year study involving fields on farms in three states highlight the prairie grass' potential as a biomass fuel source that yields significantly more energy than is consumed in production and conversion into cellulosic ethanol, said Ken Vogel, a U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service geneticist in UNL's agronomy and horticulture department.

The study involved switchgrass fields on farms in Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. It is the largest study to date examining the net energy output, greenhouse gas emissions, biomass yields, agricultural inputs and estimated cellulosic ethanol production from switchgrass grown and managed for biomass fuel.

'This clearly demonstrates that switchgrass is not only energy efficient, but can be used in a renewable biofuel economy to reduce reliance of fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance rural economies,' Vogel said."

This is significant because you don't get anywhere near this kind of yield in corn based ethanol fuel. At best advocates for the corn based fuel see about 167% yield, but that number is apparently disputed with some folks claiming there is no net yield.

And of course growing grass for fuel would leave corn available for human and animal consumption. Food shortages in the developing world are being traced back to the diversion of the corn crop to fuel rather than feed.

Read the rest here.

Showdown in Arizona

The New York Times has an op-ed piece today that actually sort of "gets it". They describe the situation at a location that is only a few blocks away from where I live in Phoenix:

"Want to see America unraveling? Come here, to Thomas Road and 35th Street, to M. D. Pruitt’s furniture store. Come on Saturday morning and stand near the eight delivery trucks barricading the parking lot, like the wall of an urban Alamo.

For the last seven weeks, a sidewalk protest here by Latino immigrants has blossomed into a feverish reality show, attracting Minutemen, mariachis, children dancing in Mexican folk costumes, white racists, United Nations observers, Phoenix police officers and Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies.

The weekly confrontation — strident and stalemated — perfectly mimics the national debate. But it’s a sideshow to something even uglier: what happens when immigration’s complexities are handed to local law enforcers sympathetic to the fury of one side."

For all I thought I knew about the immigration debate before I moved to Phoenix, I've discovered that I had only scratched the surface. Do read the article. It's quite good.

Read the rest here.

BBC NEWS: Biofuels bonanza facing 'crash'

News that the biofuel solution to the energy crunch is looking less realistic:

"The biofuels bonanza will crash unless producers can guarantee their crops have been produced responsibly, the UN's environment agency chief has said.

Achim Steiner of the UN Environment Programme (Unep) said there was an urgent need for standards to make sure rainforests weren't being destroyed.

Biofuel makers also had to show their products did not produce more CO2 than they negated, he told BBC News.

Critics say biofuels will lead to food shortages and destroy rainforests.

They point to the destruction of Indonesia's peat swamps as an example of biofuel folly."

Read the rest here.

AVIAN INFLUENZA part 1

Deacon Bill (see below) has sent along this first column:

On both November 2 and 9, the Bishop of Arizona’s E-pistle included excerpts on pandemic influenza planning along with a partial list of additional resources. Since I have a relatively extensive background in the study of infectious diseases, I submit the following as an introduction on this potentially deadly infectious disease.

Infectious diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide. It is no secret that new and re-emerging microbial agents that can cause a number of infections, including influenza, are a growing concern among scientists. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported that seasonal influenza causes more than 200,000 hospitalizations per year and about 36,000 deaths annually. Those at highest risk are the very young, the very old, those undergoing chemotherapy, or those whose immune systems are compromised, such as AIDS patients or organ transplant patients. Moreover, influenza can dramatically impact both our economy and all aspects of normal life.

Most virologists believe that another pandemic (worldwide) will occur. Indeed, influenza pandemics have occurred throughout history such as the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak. The major culprit responsible for ordinary influenza and all pandemics is the group A influenza virus, which includes the Avian (bird flu) influenza viruses. The major concern is that all these viruses are able to readily mutate. This is certainly true with the H5N1 Avian influenza virus, which is continuing to evolve. In 2006, there were about 100 confirmed cases of H5N1 in humans, the majority of them fatal. It is well known also that H5N1 virus continues to be a problem primarily among poultry in Asia and Europe. Although rare, person-to-person transmission has also been documented. What public health officials fear is that this virus may well mutate in ways that make sustained transmission of H5N1 possible. Even more troubling are the recent studies conducted at CDC that showed these viruses to be more lethal than the 1918 Spanish flu virus. This alone strongly implies a very potent disease-causing virus.

In another blog, I will discuss what a pandemic of Avian Influenza may look like.        

Energy Consumption is starving the poor

The BBC article that I posted earlier this morning points out that there's no way that the developed world can expect energy to continue to be available at present levels.

The unexpected consequence of this is being felt in Swaziland. The article in the Guardian below points out the real impact in a country that has no real resources other than its minimal agricultural industry:

"It doesn't get madder than this. Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava. The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the district of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought. It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks. Doubtless a team of development consultants is already doing the sums.

This is one of many examples of a trade that was described last month by Jean Ziegler, the UN's special rapporteur, as 'a crime against humanity'. Ziegler took up the call first made by this column for a five-year moratorium on all government targets and incentives for biofuel: the trade should be frozen until second-generation fuels - made from wood or straw or waste - become commercially available. Otherwise, the superior purchasing power of drivers in the rich world means that they will snatch food from people's mouths. Run your car on virgin biofuel, and other people will starve.

Even the International Monetary Fund, always ready to immolate the poor on the altar of business, now warns that using food to produce biofuels 'might further strain already tight supplies of arable land and water all over the world, thereby pushing food prices up even further'. This week, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation will announce the lowest global food reserves in 25 years, threatening what it calls 'a very serious crisis'. Even when the price of food was low, 850 million people went hungry because they could not afford to buy it. With every increment in the price of flour or grain, several million more are pushed below the breadline.

The cost of rice has risen by 20% over the past year, maize by 50%, wheat by 100%. Biofuels aren't entirely to blame - by taking land out of food production they exacerbate the effects of bad harvests and rising demand - but almost all the major agencies are now warning against expansion. And almost all the major governments are ignoring them.

They turn away because biofuels offer a means of avoiding hard political choices. They create the impression that governments can cut carbon emissions and - as Ruth Kelly, the British transport secretary, announced last week - keep expanding the transport networks. New figures show that British drivers puttered past the 500bn kilometre mark for the first time last year. But it doesn't matter: we just have to change the fuel we use. No one has to be confronted. The demands of the motoring lobby and the business groups clamouring for new infrastructure can be met. The people being pushed off their land remain unheard.

In principle, burning biofuels merely releases the carbon the crops accumulated when growing. Even when you take into account the energy costs of harvesting, refining and transporting the fuel, they produce less net carbon than petroleum products. The law the British government passed a fortnight ago - by 2010, 5% of our road transport fuel must come from crops - will, it claims, save between 700,000 and 800,000 tonnes of carbon a year. It derives this figure by framing the question carefully. If you count only the immediate carbon costs of planting and processing biofuels, they appear to reduce greenhouse gases. When you look at the total impacts, you find they cause more warming than petroleum."

Similar food price increases are expected here in the US as growers start to sell their harvest for biofuel processing, and thus reduce the food surplus that have kept prices low.

Read the rest: The western appetite for biofuels is causing starvation in the poor world | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited

BBC NEWS: Energy needs 'to grow inexorably'

With crude oil poised to break $100/barrel and gas over $4/gallon in the Bay Area, I heard a report on NPR this morning saying that the spiking prices were due primarily to "speculation".

My first response to the radio voice was that "speculation" is what happens when demand exceeds supply - and that it is probably not going to go away. Which means that energy prices are just going to continue to climb.

The news last night talked about a similar rise in natural gas and coal prices.

The reason for this rise is that our energy demands in a rapidly developing global market (think India and China especially) are now outstripping our supply.

This news article from the BBC this morning confirms that.

"The global demand for energy is set to grow inexorably through to 2030 if governments do not change their policies, warns a top energy official. Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said such a rise would threaten energy security and accelerate climate change.

He said energy needs in 2030 could be more than 50% above current levels, with fossil fuels still dominant."

Again, there's some economic slack that can be taken up and adjusted for here in the US. The real moral challenge is going to be that at the same time that is happening, and dollar is sliding downward, our money is going to be desperately needed in the developing world...

Read the rest: BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Energy needs 'to grow inexorably'