1. SAUDI OIL IS OF NO GREAT STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE to the US. A targeted oil embargo would be ineffective. A complete shutdown of exports would raise the world price but impact mainly on developing nations.
( http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/SaudiOilNotStrategic.htm )

2. SADDAM HUSSEIN'S THREAT TO STOP EXPORTS SHOULD BE APPLAUDED: ineffective and sure to cut his income.

3. BUSH CONSIDERS VOLUNTARY 55 MPH SPEED LIMIT: Why?

4. GLOBAL WARMING TO WORSEN SAY TWO STUDIES BASED ON UNVERIFIED CLIMATE MODELS

5. FROGS ARE HAVING SEXUAL PROBLEMS. This time the villain is not solar UV but weed killers.

6. RE-GRASSING OF NEW ZEALAND TO FIGHT FLATULENCE OF CATTLE AND SHEEP: A fragrant news item:

7. WIND GENERATION: Europe wrestles with better terminology

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2. BAGHDAD HALTS OIL EXPORTS
(Letter to Editor of WSJ, April 18, 2002)

We should all welcome Saddam Hussein's self-imposed stoppage of Iraq's oil exports to protest Israeli efforts to clean Palestinian cities of illegal arms and terrorists. The world oil market yawned as rival producers cheered the slightly higher price and took the opportunity to sell more of their oil. According to reports, Saudi Arabia is rejecting calls to use oil as a weapon to apply political pressure on the West; its oil minister says his country is committed to maintaining oil price stability (-- and to maximizing oil profits!).

Saddam's decision should please Senator Conrad Burns ["Don't Buy Rogue Oil" op-ed, WSJ April 8]. It also accomplishes Senator Frank Murkowski's amendment to the Senate energy bill to ban Iraqi oil imports. I recall that during the hostage crisis former president Jimmy Carter declared an import embargo on Iranian oil.

Of course, none of these political gestures really matter since oil is a FUNGIBLE commodity. The market will always find a way to distribute the available supply to willing buyers. This is another reason to cheer for Saddam. He will demonstrate the impotence of the "oil weapon" -- as if further proof is needed.

Saddam's move also reduces his oil income and cripples his ability to fund terrorism. We should persuade him to institute a yearlong stop of oil exports --- or even much longer. His successor will thank him for leaving more oil in the ground. And before we blame the current higher price of gasoline on Saddam: It started to rise well before his announcement.

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S. Fred Singer is emeritus professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and a visiting Wesson Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He authored a monograph on "The Price of World Oil" and is also co-author of "Free Market Energy."

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3, BUSH CONSIDERS VOLUNTARY 55 MPH SPEED LIMIT.

Bush administration sources have revealed that they are considering a voluntary 55 mph speed limit as part of a package of voluntary carbon dioxide emission reduction measures they hope to add to the Senate Energy Bill. While details are sketchy, the concept is thought to be the "natural partner" to the President's proposed voluntary carbon dioxide emission reduction program for coal fired power plants and other stationary sources.

However, apparently an emission reduction credit program is not contemplated, as it is regarded as unworkable. Rather, sources say they envision a "bully pulpit" campaign by Bush to get people to "do their bit" to stop global warming. Sources stress that the concept is tentative at this point.

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4. MORE GLOBAL WARMING HYPE

CNN reports Two new climate studies predict that global warming by the end of the century "will be even more dramatic than a United Nations group has predicted."

"These very different approaches both tell us that two to three decades from now, it will be warmer than it is now," said Francis Zwiers, a statistics and climate expert with the Meteorological Service of Canada. A British study says that in those years the Earth will be 0.5 to 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the period between 1990-2000. A Swiss study predicts a temperature increase ranging from 0.9 to 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit. The two studies are detailed in the latest issue of the journal Nature. The U.N. study, published last year, concluded that "most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities," including gases from industry and automobiles.

CNN does admit that some climate scientists sharply disagree and argue that the Earth has been in a long-term, natural cycle of rising temperatures since the so-called "Little Ice Age" 500 years ago. Further, they point out that many temperature-monitoring stations are located in cities, where heat-absorbing buildings and pavement can give misleadingly high temperature readings.

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SEPP Comment:

But CNN doesn't tell us that both satellite and balloon data show no detectable warming of the Earth's atmosphere in the past 22 years. The preponderant evidence shows the warmest years occurring around 1940.

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5. HERBICIDES MAY DISRUPT THE SEX LIFE OF FROGS -- ALLEGEDLY

BERKELEY, California, April 16, 2002 (ENS) - Atrazine, the top selling weed killer in the United States, disrupts the sexual development of frogs at concentrations 30 times lower than levels allowed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The researchers who uncovered the problem join environmentalists in expressing concern about heavy use of the herbicide on corn, soybeans and other crops in the U.S. Midwest and around the world.

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SEPP Comment:

It will surely get worse if more corn is grown to make ethanol for motor fuel.

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6. NO PROSPECT OF RE-GRASSING NEW ZEALAND IN FIGHT AGAINST FLATULENCE
(Agence France Presse, April 10, 2002)

New Zealand's battle against cattle and sheep flatulence was, according to this story, bogged down Wednesday in a battle over whether it was practical to re-grass the country's grazing lands.

The story explains that New Zealand's millions of livestock produce methane, its largest greenhouse gas contributor, and emissions will have to be reduced when the government later this year proposes to ratify the Kyoto Protocol agreement to slow global warming. The problem appears to be in the grass that blankets the nation's farms, and that comprises almost one hundred percent of livestock feed year-round. But when the agribusiness, Wrightson, applied for government funding for a project to investigate the link between grass and methane they were turned down by the state advisory Foundation for Research Science and Technology (FORST).

Wrightson managing director Allan Freeth was cited as saying he was "peeved" that the application was turned down after the government had called for collaborative research on the issue of animal farting. Freeth said the brief rejection letter from FORST listed among its reasons, that it did not think it practical to "re-grass all of New Zealand". FORST also questioned some of the science, a reason Freeth said he would happily accept if it could be proven, plus the proposal suggested additional research could lead to genetically engineered plants, which was not part of the joint proposal. Breeding grass and crops that produce less methane gas is one idea being looked at to reduce emissions.

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7. BRITISH WIND FARM PLANS DRAW DERISION
(From The Financial Times, 1/4/2002-that's April 1 in the US)

Renewable energy installations in the UK and Ireland will be known as FARTs as from 1st January next year. The new designation has been devised at the request of the European Council of Ministers, by a research team at the Westphalia Institute of Technology, Language and European Semantic Studies.

The team was commissioned to draw up a Policy on the Harmonisation of European Scientific Terms and Acronyms, with the aim of agreeing names, which would translate into the main languages of the 15 EU countries and result in an acceptable acronym in each language.

Speaking at the launch of the Policy last Thursday, team leader Dr. Heinz Funfzig-Sieben said that he was particularly pleased with the English version of the new generic term for renewable energy generating installations - "Facility Applying Renewable Technology" - as it had been discovered that "fart" was an archaic English word meaning "wind generation". Despite this, the term will apply across the renewable spectrum, so hydro-FARTs and Tidal FARTs will soon be in everyday use in the UK.

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