Talking dirty in China

Beijing has been producing daily pollution reports since 1999. Even so, until recently officials went on referring to this soul-sapping grey pall as wu, or “fog”, a word that sounded more benign in weather reports. Residents have tended to follow suit, even though their semi-desert climate is too dry much of the year for fog, produced by water vapour near the ground.
When the city finally steeled itself last month to introduce warnings specifically for “haze”, produced by pollutant particles suspended in the air.
The quality of the city air is attracting more attention thanks mainly to the Olympic Games, which open in Beijing in August 2008. A 500-day countdown starts on March 27th. The games will be held at a time of year when the city climate can be unbearably hot and also very humid, even without the haze.
International scrutiny is certainly helping. Without the Olympics, it is unlikely that Beijing would be trying at all hard to curb atmospheric pollution.
The general result of all this is a popular awareness of environmental health threats so low that even the vocabulary is unfamiliar. Beijing’s citizens now know that they have haze. It may be a long time yet before they see it dispelled.

Material Shows Weakening of Climate Reports

A House committee released documents Monday that showed hundreds of instances in which a White House official who was previously an oil industry lobbyist edited government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming or play down evidence of such a role.
Across NASA, researchers and career public affairs workers spoke up to alert The New York Times to rising political interference with the flow of science news to the public. A week after The Times’s first story, Michael Griffin, the NASA administrator, issued a statement "on scientific opennness" to the agency's 19,000 employees saying changes would be made.
In a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the official, Philip A. Cooney, who left government in 2005, defended the changes he had made in government reports over several years. Mr. Cooney said the editing was part of the normal White House review process and reflected findings in a climate report written for President Bush by the National Academy of Sciences in 2001.
He was hired by Exxon Mobil after resigning in 2005 following reports on the editing in The New York Times. The White House said his resignation was not related to the disclosures.
Mr. Cooney said his past work opposing restrictions on heat-trapping gases for the oil industry had had no bearing on his actions once he joined the White House. “When I came to the White House,” he testified, “my sole loyalties were to the president and his administration.”
Mr. Cooney, who has no scientific background, said he had based his editing and recommendations on what he had seen in good faith as the “most authoritative and current views of the state of scientific knowledge.”
The hearing also produced the first sworn statements from George C. Deutsch III, who moved in 2005 from the Bush re-election campaign to public affairs jobs at NASA. There he warned career press officers to exert more control over James E. Hansen, the top climate expert at the space agency.
Mr. Deutsch resigned last year after it was disclosed that he had never graduated from Texas A&M University, as his résumé on file at NASA said. He has since completed work for the degree, he said Monday.
Democrats focused on fresh details that committee staff members had compiled showing how Mr. Cooney made hundreds of changes to government climate research plans and reports to Congress on climate that raised a sense of uncertainty about the science.
The documents “appear to portray a systematic White House effort to minimize the significance of climate change,” said a memorandum circulated by the Democrats under the committee chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California.

Students’ Right to Free Speech

The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a case that has attracted attention mainly because of its eccentric story line: An Alaska student was suspended from high school in 2002 after he unfurled a banner reading “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” while the Olympic torch passed by. But the case raises important issues of freedom of expression and student censorship that go far beyond the words on that banner. The court should affirm the appeals court’s well-reasoned decision that when the school punished the student it violated his First Amendment rights. The principal took it from him, and suspended him for 10 days.
Mr. Frederick says the suspension violated his rights. The school board insists the principal had the right to confiscate the banner and punish the student because the language undermined its teachings about the dangers of illegal drugs. The San Francisco-based United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled for Mr. Frederick, citing the 1969 case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, which held that students have the right to free speech, which can be suppressed only when the speech disrupts school activities.
The Bush administration joined the school district in arguing that schools have broad authority to limit talk about drugs because of the importance of keeping drugs away from young people. But if schools can limit speech on any subject deemed to be important, students could soon be punished for talking about the war on terror or the war in Iraq because the government also considers those subjects important.
Some school administrators would no doubt use their power to clamp down on conservative speech while others would clamp down on liberal speech. A school that values diversity could punish students who criticize affirmative action, while a more conservative school could ban students from taking outspoken positions about global warming. Religious groups have joined civil libertarians in backing Mr. Frederick because they fear schools will punish students who talk about their religious beliefs.
If the Supreme Court wants to dodge the free-speech-in-school issues, it could rule that the off-campus Olympic torch event was not a formal school activity — and that the principal had no right to limit anyone’s free speech there. That would not harm students’ free speech rights, but it would also do little to affirm them.
The court should go further, and rule that Mr. Frederick’s rights were infringed. Students do not have the right to interfere substantially with school activities, but Mr. Frederick did not do that. The court should use this case to reaffirm Tinker’s famous pronouncement that students do not shed their right to free speech “at the schoolhouse gate.”

Acquiring emissions quotas

If a country is not allocated enough emissions quotas to meet its Kyoto targets, it can turn to the so-called flexibility mechanisms to get more. What exactly are these mechanisms? And can a country use them as much as it likes instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions through domestic action?

By Kristin Rypdal
By the end of 2006, the countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and have emissions targets (the so-called Annex I countries) are required to report their 1990 emissions (or another approved base year) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). When the inventories have been reviewed and approved – and corrected for any deficiencies uncovered during the audit – it will be clear how much each country will be allowed to emit during the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008-2012). This will form the basis for allocation of emissions quotas (assigned amounts). Before the flexibility mechanisms can be used, a satisfactory national quota registry and an approved national system for reporting emissions and removals in following years must be established. A country can also be refused permission to trade quotas if the quality of its emissions reporting is unacceptable.
Buying and selling quotas
If the number of quotas allocated to a country isn’t enough, there are a number of ways to get more. Buying emissions quotas from Annex I countries with a right to trade is one possibility. Trading can take place between countries, businesses, or other legal entities. In the EU Emissions Trading System, there will be limits to which sources can be included in this type of trade, and there are requirements for measuring and verifying the emissions from legal entities that participate. Important emissions sources in Europe, such as power plants and industries, will be included in the system. Another way to obtain quotas is to invest in mitigation projects in developing countries though the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and in other Annex I countries through joint implementation (JI). The projects must be approved in accordance with the regulations and monitored satisfactorily.
In addition to the flexibility mechanisms, the net carbon removal in forests as a result of increased forest area within national borders also gives extra quotas. It is also possible to choose to get credit for uptake, or reduced emissions, resulting from changing the way other areas are managed, areas such as agricultural land, existing forest areas, or areas that are allowed to return to their natural state. This choice must be made in 2006 and will require monitoring and reporting of removals and emissions from these areas also in the following commitment periods.
In addition to selling quotas, a country can lose quotas through cancellation. Canceled quotas disappear from the system and cannot be sold or used to meet commitments. Quotas can be canceled for several reasons, including net emissions from forests. Quotas can also be canceled voluntarily – for example, an environmental organization can purchase quotas and cancel them. After the commitment period, the quotas are retired as settlement for what was emitted during the period. Since the emissions will not be known until two years after the first commitment period is over in 2012, there will be a period when countries can trade quotas to help them to meet commitments or to be rid of extra quotas. If a country is left with extra quotas after that, they can be transferred to a subsequent commitment period. However, there are limits to transferring quotas acquired from mitigation projects or uptake in forests.
Long-term emissions targets
The parties to the Kyoto Protocol have agreed on a comprehensive regulatory framework for the use of the flexibility mechanisms and for allocating and deleting quotas from the management of forests and other land areas. The technical regulations themselves also limit how easy it is to obtain quotas – to ensure that credits are only given for genuine, verifiable, and permanent reductions in emissions or increases in uptake. The question is whether Norway can purchase as many quotas as it needs, as long as it follows the technical regulations. The parties have agreed that domestic action – and not the use of the flexibility mechanisms – should constitute a significant element of the efforts to meet the Kyoto targets, and that the mechanisms should come only as a supplement to domestic action. However, there is no formal ceiling on the use of the mechanisms, and an absolute ceiling would be difficult to quantify since emission levels without domestic action are not easy to define. But all countries must document that their use of the mechanisms takes place in addition to domestic measures. This information will be part of the evaluation of how a party is in compliance with its overall obligations. The last, and perhaps most important, question is whether it is wise to meet the targets by using the flexibility mechanisms extensively instead of implementing more domestic measures.
The usual argument is that it does not make any difference for the climate whether the emissions take place in Norway or in other countries because the ceiling for emissions under the Kyoto Protocol is fixed. From a short-term economic perspective, it is thus only a question of whether it is cheaper to use the mechanisms or to implement domestic measures to meet the targets in 2012. The intention of the Kyoto Protocol is, however, that it should be followed up with a more stringent agreement after 2012. This means it can be sensible to also consider more long-term emissions goals in the decision about whether to buy quotas or to implement domestic measures to meet the targets in 2012. If domestic measures mean more development and investment in new climate-friendly technology than would occur through purchasing quotas from other countries, a longer time-horizon than 2012 can mean that it will pay off to implement domestic measures even though it makes meeting Kyoto targets more expensive.

Flaws in the Kyoto Protocol

There was already much scepticism before the Kyoto Summit as to whether the meeting would result in the tough decisions necessary to avert climate chaos. The flawed Protocol that emerged from the Summit has done little to dispel such cynicism.

by Tan Cheng Li


THE much touted Kyoto Protocol on climate change almost did not materialise. Negotiators worked overnight and extended the meeting by a day to eventually put it together.

But they needn't have bothered. For the document agreed upon in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December is a flawed one: it has none of the drastic emissions curbs scientists say are essential in averting climate chaos.

Yes, the agreement is historically important as it will, for the first time, legally bind developed countries to rein in emissions of heat-trapping gases. But in practical terms the Kyoto Protocol is an empty vessel which is unlikely to turn down the heat.

At Kyoto, major environmental groups decided that the final agreement will be judged on three points: whether it has the most stringent reduction targets possible; whether it is completely free from loopholes which allow emissions to increase; and whether it has automatic and real penalties for cheating.

The protocol fails on all points. It is a compromise, acknowledges Malaysia's climate treaty negotiator Chow Kok Kee, a Meteorological Services director.

KEY FEATURES
Target Cutbacks
Developed countries must
cut their 1990-level emissions
of six gases by 5.2% between
2008 and 2012.
Japan has the most modest goal,
a cut of 6%, compared with 7%
for the US and 8% for the EU.
Coal-exporting Australia, however,
will increase its emissions by 8%.
Emissions trading
Countries that overshot their
emissions-reduction targets
can "buy" emissions rights
from nations which have excess. Joint Implementation
Emission cuts need not be
confined to within the country.
They can be implemented elsewhere,
with the financing country claiming
credit for the resulting emissions
savings.
Carbon Sinks
To tabulate its total emissions,
a country can subtract the
amount of gases absorbed by
carbon sinks such as forests
within its borders.
Emissions banking
A country that emits less than
its assigned target can keep the
excess for the subsequent period.





'We are not happy with the outcome. The protocol does not address core issues such as setting adequate targets. But in such international negotiations, there is always some compromise.'

Environmentalists are less charitable.

'The protocol is unlikely to make any difference. It gives the false impression that a breakthrough has been achieved but there are too many loopholes,' says Gurmit Singh, regional co-ordinator of Climate Action Network South-East Asia, an organisation of public interest groups working on the climate issue.

The holes in the protocol essentially mean business as usual for the large greenhouse gas emitters, as long as they pay poorer nations to do the dirty job of cutting emissions.

Modest targets

It was glaringly evident in Kyoto that most developed countries were reluctant to make the deep and early cuts of greenhouse gases needed to mitigate global-warming effects. A reduction of 5.2% from 1990 levels, to be achieved between 2008 and 2012, is way below earlier proposals - green groups and developing countries had demanded at least a 7.5% cut by 2005.

Environment group Greenpeace says the Kyoto targets will produce an actual overall reduction of gases by 1% or 2% only. We need a 60% reduction to make a dent on the gaseous 'glass' dome which now envelopes the globe, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the advisory scientific body to the climate treaty).

Why has this figure been completely ignored? Again, it's down to compromise.

Eager to have something at the end of the day, countries relented and reduced targets to break through deadlocks. A case in point is the European Union (EU), which abandoned its ambitious 15% slash proposal for a low of 8%.

'The Union was not willing to sign if the United States (which wanted no cuts at all) did not sign, so the EU bowed down,' explains Gurmit.

To make matters worse, reduction targets can be changed only with the consent of the concerned party. In other words, 'it gives the country a veto mechanism. So you cannot raise the emission target as long as the country disagrees. This makes future target changes difficult,' Gurmit points out.

Loophole 1: Trading hot air

Topping a long list of loopholes in the Kyoto Protocol is 'emissions trading'. This enables a country which has exceeded its emissions quota to 'buy' another country's unused quota.

So why should the United States - the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases - bother with replacing fossil fuel with solar energy since it can purchase rights to more emissions from, say, the former Soviet Union?

Since trading is now a done deal in the protocol, Chow says the next best thing is to draw up strict rules and procedures, such as limiting traded amounts. This will be the focus of next year's climate meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Loophole 2: Emissions banking

Critics also cry foul over 'emissions banking', whereby a country that emits less than it's supposed to can 'carry forward' the surplus to the subsequent period.

For instance, if a country has to reduce emissions by 5% but actually reduces by 8% the extra 3% can be added to next year's target of 5%, thus lowering the reduction rate to 2% in that year.

Green groups say this restricts overall emission-reduction efforts.

Chow, however, views emissions banking optimistically, saying that it can be an incentive to meet targets early as 'any extra emissions can be kept for next year and will not be wasted.'

There was also a proposal to introduce 'emissions borrowing' which would allow a country which exceeds its target to 'borrow' on future emissions rights. This proposal was not accepted - and rightly so as 'borrowing basically defers commitment,' says Chow.

Loophole 3: Carbon for sale

Equally controversial is the concept of joint implementation, where a country which invests in climate-friendly projects, such as reforestation or clean energy facilities, elsewhere can claim credits to offset its own emissions.

Like emissions trading, such joint projects essentially allow the richer country to continue fouling the atmosphere while transferring cutback efforts to the country receiving its 'aid.'

Officially, carbon offset projects are restricted to developed countries. Yet, the protocol actually provides for such schemes among developing countries in the form of the clean development mechanism. This process will finance emission-reduction projects in cash- and technology-starved developing countries.

The saved emissions will then be sold as 'carbon credits' to developed countries in need of these credits to meet their cutback targets. Again, this mechanism allows climate polluters to purchase rights to keep polluting.

For Chow, the clean development mechanism is basically joint implementation in disguise, while Gurmit reckons it permits emissions trading between developed and developing countries.

To prevent exploitation of this scheme, Chow asserts that strict rules and procedures, like those to be drawn up for emissions trading, will be required. He says the amount of carbon credits that can be sold must be restricted and, 'as much as possible, reductions must be made domestically.'

Despite the controversies and claims of 'carbon colonisation', carbon offset projects are being conducted worldwide, including in Malaysia.

For instance, coal plants in the Netherlands and the United States are financing forestry projects in Sabah with hopes of claiming credits to offset their emissions under the protocol.

Loophole 4: Counting carbon sinks

Yet another flaw in the protocol is the inclusion of carbon sinks (natural entities such as forests and soil which can absorb carbon dioxide) in emissions accounting.

So a country can subtract the amount of greenhouse gases supposedly absorbed by sinks from its total emissions. However, the case against this is the fact that there is much scientific uncertainty about exactly how much carbon the sinks can remove from the atmosphere.

Forecast: Cloudy

The future of the Kyoto Protocol is cloudy, to say the least. For the agreement to take effect, at least 55 nations must ratify it - and this must include developed nations with current combined emissions of at least 55% of 1990 levels. However, the math does not work out: there are only 38 countries in Annex I, the list of countries subjected to emission curbs.

'If they cannot get 55 parties, they will insist that developing countries make commitments in order for the protocol to be implemented,' says Gurmit. He also fears that this provision will be exploited to include key developing countries under Annex 1, when the list is reviewed next year.

Both Chow and Gurmit agree, however, that the 55% minimum emission is a good contingency move - just in case some countries decide not to ratify.

'With the earlier proposal of a specific tonnage (before the protocol takes effect), the fear was that as long as the big emitters did not sign, they would hold the protocol to ransom. But now, countries will still make up the 55% even if the largest emitter refuses to participate,' says Chow.

Ultimately, though, you have to ask the question: what use is a treaty if there are no penalties for non-compliance?

This issue was pushed aside at Kyoto, and will only be sorted out sometime in the future.

Given the long list of caveats, it is no wonder that Greenpeace's Bill Hare labels the Kyoto outcome a 'tragedy and a farce'.

Though some quarters are attempting to retain some degree of optimism, stating that the protocol is a legally binding document and a first step, there is no denying one fact: the Kyoto Protocol provides scant protection against increasing environmental and economic damage that the continuous burning of coal and oil will unleash on the world.

It is no wonder, then, that environmentalists and journalists watching the summit closing ceremony on screens put up at the media centre, unanimously scoffed when one delegate stood up and announced jubilantly, 'Today there are no losers and only one winner - the environment.'

Nothing could be further from the truth. (Third World Resurgence No.89, January 1998)

Tan Cheng Li is on the staff of the Malaysian daily, The Star in which the above article first appeared. (23 December, 1997).

U.S. and North Korea Resolve Bank Standoff

The United States and North Korea have resolved a standoff over North Korean funds frozen in a bank account in Macao, clearing the way for talks to focus on implementing a nuclear disarmament accord, Chinese and American officials said today.
An 18-month investigation into the bank ended last week, putting responsibility for returning the funds to North Korea in the hands of the authorities in Macao. But funds connected to illegal activities, like money laundering, counterfeiting, and narcotics and weapons trafficking, are not supposed to be returned.
The United States, North Korea, China, Russia, South Korea and Russia reached an initial agreement on Feb. 13 that gave North Korea 60 days to shut down its facility for producing plutonium for nuclear weapons at Yongbyon in return for aid and security pledges.
Bush administration officials initially raised allegations that the North had a clandestine uranium program underway in 2002, citing intelligence from Pakistan, which American officials said may have sold equipment for enriching uranium to North Korea.
Pyongyang has denied that it has sought to build bombs using highly enriched uranium, but North Korean officials have said recently that they are willing to discuss the matter with the United States.

An evil weed

Cigarettes may kill, but their makers know that the addiction will last
THE single most shattering statistic about life in America in the late 1990s was that tobacco killed more people than the combined total of those who died from AIDS, car accidents, alcohol, murder, suicide, illegal drugs and fire.The deaths of more than 400,000 Americans each year, 160,000 of them from lung cancer, make a strong case for the prohibition of tobacco, and particularly of cigarettes. The case, backed by solid evidence, has been made in every public arena since the early 1950s, when the first convincing link between smoking and cancer was established in clinical and epidemiological studies—yet 50m Americans still go on smoking.
Most smokers in America eventually manage to quit, and local laws banning smoking in public have become common, but the industry prospers. The tobacco companies have survived virtually everything their opponents have thrown at them. At the end of his story, Mr Brandt writes: “The legal assault on Big Tobacco had been all but repelled. The industry was decidedly intact, ready to do business profitably at home and abroad.”
Cigarettes overcame any lingering opposition to the pleasure they gave when American soldiers came to crave them during the first world war. Cigarettes were sexy, and the companies poured money into advertising.
That was simply because, until the 1940s, not enough men had been smoking for long enough to develop fatal cancers (women did not reach this threshold until the 1970s). The first clinical and epidemiological studies linking cigarette-smoking and lung cancer were published only in 1950. By 1953 the six leading companies had agreed that a collective response was required. They paid handsomely for a public-relations campaign that insistently denied any proof of a causal connection between smoking and cancer. This worked well until 1964, when a devastating report from the surgeon-general's advisory committee in effect ended medical uncertainty about the harmfulness of smoking.
But Big Tobacco rode the punches. When the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ruled that health warnings must appear on each pack, the industry consented. But it shrewdly exploited the warning: “In a culture that emphasised individual responsibility, smokers would bear the blame for wilful risk-taking,” notes Mr Brandt. Many cases for damages against the companies foundered on that rock.
However, the industry was powerless to prevent a flood of damaging internal documents, leaked by insiders. The companies were shown, for instance, to have cynically disregarded evidence from their in-house researchers about the addictive properties of nicotine. Internal papers also showed that extra nicotine was added to cigarettes to guarantee smokers sufficient “satisfaction”.
For those who thought the settlement was akin to “dancing with the devil”, it appeared in retrospect that the devil had indeed had the best tunes, reports Mr Brandt. To his credit, he manages to keep his historian's hat squarely on his head. But you can feel the anguish.

Legalize Euthanasia

legalize euthanasia

is the practice of terminating the life of a person or animal in a painless or minimally painful way in order to stop suffering or other undesired conditions in life. This may be voluntary or involuntary, and carried out with or without a physician. In a medical environment, this can be carried out by oral, intravenous or intramuscular drug administration.

Reasons given for Voluntary Euthanasia:

* Choice: Choice is a fundamental democratic principle and is the basis of the Free Enterprise system.

* Financial: It is a burden to keep people alive past the point they can contribute to society.

* Pain: The pain and suffering a person feels during a disease can be incomprehensible, even with pain relievers, to a person who has not gone through it. Society should not be able to force them to endure such hardship.

Reasons given against Voluntary Euthanasia:

* Hippocratic Oath: Every doctor must swear upon some variation of it, and the original version explicitly excludes euthanasia.

* Moral: Some people consider euthanasia of some or all types to be morally unacceptable. [1] This view usually treats euthanasia to be a type of murder and voluntary euthanasia as a type of suicide, the morality of which is the subject of active debate.

* Theological: Many religions and modern religious interpretations explicitly regard both euthanasia and suicide as sinful acts (see Religious views of suicide).

* Competence: Euthanasia can only be considered "voluntary" if a patient is mentally competent to make the decision, i.e., has a rational understanding of options and consequences. Competence can be difficult to determine or even define.

* Necessity: If there is some reason to believe the cause of a patient's illness or suffering is or will soon be curable or palliable, the correct action is to attempt to bring about a cure or engage in palliative care.

Pro-Choice

make it legal for a competent adult, who is suffering unbearably from a terminal illness, to be allowed to request medical help to die at their own informed and persistent request - If that's what they want.

Everyone wants a good death, which is why opinion polls show 85% of the population support us.

The doctor/patient relationship has changed a lot over the last 50 years, from 'doctor knows best' towards a more equal relationship with doctors giving patients the information they need in order to make their own informed decisions. But when it comes to end-of-life decision making the relationship is far from equal: patients are still disempowered.

This requires a two-way dialogue with our doctors, where our wishes about our own lives are respected.

The desire to have control over our lives is a fundamental part of our humanity.

Everyone knows that doctors help people to die even though it is against the law. For example, in a recent survey 4% of UK doctors admitted to assisting in a patient's suicide, although the real figure is likely to be much higher.

Each year 'mercy killing' cases are brought to court but juries refuse to convict, or when they do judges only give suspended sentences. Without legal safeguards there is little protection here for vulnerable people.

Belgium, conducted a full enquiry into end-of-life decisions, discovered it had five times the amount of non-voluntary euthanasia as the Netherlands, where assisted dying is strictly regulated. The Belgian Senate has now voted to legalise voluntary euthanasia because it recognises regulation is the best way to protect the vulnerable.

Pro-Life

Promoters of these practices take a utilitarian view of human life rather than viewing all human life as uniquely created and deserving of absolute respect.

Dr Christopher Hufeland, Goethe's doctor, warned in 1806 "The physician should and may do nothing else but preserve life. "Whether it is valuable or not, that is none of his business. If he once permits such considerations to influence his actions, the doctor will become the most dangerous man in the state."

The legalising of intentional killing is the catalyst for the wholesale destruction of the elderly - we have seen the torrent of death in Holland where the elderly are terrified of entering hospital for fear of involuntary euthanasia.

Britain Wonders if More Elections Equal More Democracy

THE members of the House of Lords, that august assembly of scarlet-robed and mainly appointed peers which forms the upper chamber of Britain’s democracy, voted last week to stand firm against pressure to become fully elected.
After centuries as a hereditary chamber that only reluctantly permitted appointed members to join its clubby conclaves, no one expected the House of Lords to welcome the latest demand from the House of Commons to change its ways.
But as this longstanding battle between the upper-crust and the commoners entered its probably protracted final phase, it produced a somewhat counterintuitive notion: more elections may not necessarily mean more democracy.
Since 1999, the House of Lords has challenged the House of Commons — and thus the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair, which has a majority in the more powerful lower house — on 350 issues. True, the Lords chose to oppose the government on some matters, such as a ban on fox hunting, that seemed to reflect the older interests of an assembly of nobles controlling vast estates where equestrian hunters charged and gamboled.
But many of the tussles related to civil rights and counterterrorism laws seen by the Lords as repressive. The Lords, in other words, became the improbable champions of the underdog in the face of a Labor government that once claimed the libertarian mantle for itself. In the process, the Lords displayed a doughty independence born of lifetime tenures that leave them largely aloof from electoral politics.
The battle now is between nonelected independence and electoral legitimacy.
The Commons wants to replace 600-odd life peers, appointed in various ways, and the remaining 92 hereditary peers with people elected from party lists for a single 15-year term. Some opponents of the plan argue that because accountability won’t be reinforced by re-elections, the voting might purchase an appearance of legitimacy at the expense of cherished independence.
“The promise of democratic legitimacy is a sham,” wrote Bruce Ackerman, a professor of law and political science at Yale, in The London Review of Books. “The bar on re-election strips voters of their basic tool for democratic accountability: the politicians’ fear that their constituents will throw them out of office.” Or, as one Labor legislator, Tom Levitt, said in the House of Commons, “it’s not the election that makes democracy, it’s the re-election.”
Prime Minister Tony Blair had favored a mixed House of Lords, half appointed, half elected, a plan that backfired when the Commons went much farther than he wished. The Lords — and Ladies — were not too keen on a mixed chamber, either, saying competition between Lords and Commons could create unmanageable tensions between two competing elected bodies
A hybrid house, said Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean, a Labor peer, “is not a connection to democracy; it’s a connection to constitutional uncertainty and electoral unfairness.”
The House of Lords has always been a font of patronage. Almost by definition, the peers owed their elevated positions to the largess of their monarch and their ability to raise taxes and armies in return. Indeed, Bob Marshall-Andrews, a Labor legislator opposed to the proposed changes, told Parliament: “The true curse of the British political system is patronage.”
And it may be that the police inquiry into the so-called cash-for-honors scandal gave the final push to almost a century of efforts by the House of Commons to limit the power of the Lords.

Abu Dhabi Explores Energy Alternatives

Oil, however, will have nothing to do with it. The sun, the wind and hydrogen will.
Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, the fourth largest OPEC oil producer with about 10 percent of the known reserves, is seeking to become a center for the development and implementation of clean-energy technology.
At first, the Masdar effort drew skepticism and a few snickers. The United Arab Emirates has been singled out as one of the world’s highest per capita emitters of carbon monoxide and other greenhouse gases.
The U.A.E. has especially high energy demand to maintain a luxurious life of air-conditioning, chilled swimming pools and even an indoor ski slope in the emirate of Dubai.
The U.A.E. is only the most serious among Persian Gulf oil-producing countries whose thirst for electrical power has spawned efforts to find other sources of energy to save high value fossil fuels for export. Most Persian Gulf states get their water from desalinating gulf waters, an energy-intensive process. With their populations growing rapidly, domestic consumption of oil is commanding a greater share of production. Late last year Saudi Arabia and other gulf states began a research program looking into nuclear power; Iran, which has faced off with the United States and other international powers, insists that its nuclear program is intended to serve mounting energy demands domestically.
Alternative energy has attracted increasing interest over the past year as American industrial leaders have called for more aggressive action to be taken against the phenomenon of global warming and the Bush administration has focused greater attention on renewable energy. In Silicon Valley, the excitement over clean-energy technology startups recalls the flurry of new Internet companies in the 1990s.
“This is the first oil-producing state that has accepted and agreed with the concept that oil may not be the only source of energy in the future,” said Fred Moavenzadeh, director of the Technology Development Program at M.I.T. “That is a significant realization.”
Most important, they say, it hopes to prepare itself for a world that is not as reliant on fossil fuels as it is today. Abu Dhabi’s expertise, they say, is in energy, not just in oil.
“It is a very significant move because the Middle East is one of the areas where renewable energy has never made any strides.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/world/middleeast/18abudhabi.html?ex=1331870400&en=e87584d7bf64715a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss