Climate change and the lost islands

The U.N. says it is vowing to help Pacific island states affected by climate change.  Its options are not good.

The U.N. can't help these islands unless Washington comes to terms with climate change. But the U.S. seems to be in complete denial about it. The newly elected House Republicans want to cut climate science funding and strip the EPA of much of its regulatory power. It’s just amazing, really, how self-destructive we've become on this issue. 

This issue is entirely political unless you live in the Federated States of Micronesia, with many vulnerable sea level population areas.

Climate change is a real, real issue in the FSM.

In 2009, H.E. Emanuel Mori, the president of FSM, gave a speech at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. He said:

We are not certain if our biggest threat is from ocean acidification that will erode our islands from underneath, OR from sea-level rise that could submerge our islands under the sea, OR from changes in weather and typhoon intensity that could make inhabiting our islands impossible. But we know that our continued peaceful existence is totally at risk. We know that the enemy that gives rise to these threats is climate change. And we know that to survive, we must act now.

The only way to protect FSM and other Pacific islands is through adoption of climate mitigation and reduce the causes of global warming, namely Co2 levels due to emissions from fossil fuels. Adaptation may be an impossibility in low level Pacific islands. 

That means the future of the Pacific islands is dependent on the U.S. response, as well as that of other industrialized nations, to climate change. But that won't happen as long as the political process in Washington stays in denial and gridlock on this issue. U.S. leadership seems committed to accomplishing as little as possible for as long as possible. 

Here’s what H.E. Alik L. Alik, the vice president of FSM, said at a U.N. meeting in September about “Millennium Development Goals” (MDGs) and climate change:

We cannot meaningfully talk about the MDGs unless the international community addresses the real danger that Micronesia and other Small Island Developing States will disappear because of the adverse impacts of climate change. In short, Mr. President, we are the least responsible but most vulnerable.

Say goodbye to Guam war reparations

Guam's longstanding effort for war reparations ought to have won passage by Congress this year. The island is facing major upheaval as a result of the build-up, and approval of reparations would have been one way for Congress to demonstrate to Guam that it honors the sacrifices that the people of the island have made. But it was rejected, once again, this year. That's probably it for war reparations; it has zero prospects in the next Congress.

Consider the 9/11 health care bill, which began at more than $7 billion, but was chopped down to $4.3 billion. The 9/11 bill will help pay the medical cost of men and women who helped in the rescue. Many have suffered serious health problems, from long-term disability to death, as a result exposure to toxins.

But a significant group of Republicans opposed it for a laundry list of reasons. Among them, that the U.S. didn’t have the money for additional benefits.

U.S. Rep. Madeleine Bordallo said, in published reports, that she will try again next year to win approval of the $100 million war reparations bill and believes she has some key support for it. Bordallo is being strung along.

There will be little interest in the next Congress for bills such as war reparations. Lawmakers are expecting to seek cuts in many programs, including defense-related. Even if Bordallo can find a revenue source to offset reparations,  that revenue source is more likely to get assigned to more pressing needs, such as school lunch programs.

The three phases of Guam's buildup

I loved the headline in the Guam NewsWatch. “Hillary Clinton Spends ‘Productive' Hour on Guam.” Delightful sarcasm, I hope.

The buildup is now is entering several phases. 

One: The first is the babble phase. 

Guam isn’t registering with the news media and President Obama has crossed it off his list. There’s no interest in the Guam buildup in Washington and the Pentagon knows it.  It’s all done now and the Pentagon has sent out a new team to supervise the buildup.

“We’re not going to build a new Marine Corps base ... and the Marines are going to move here and we have Guam and then we have Marines. We’re going to build a next village on Guam. We want to have a Marine Corps village on Guam and blend into the local culture.” – Marine Corps Times,  comments by the director of the Pacific Division Headquarters Marine Corps.

"You know, people keep saying...'can't you put any of these ranges somewhere else?'" Wood said. "I don't want to be cynical, but sure, you could put the ranges in downtown Agana -- what good would that do for the Marine Corps or the people of Guam? We tried to find the place that has the least impact on the entire island, on the culture, on the people of Guam. The EIS has for the most part identified the Route 15 area. –  Guam NewsWatch.

The babble phase is where the U.S. has what it wants from Guam and officials no longer feel they are under any obligation to say anything that makes the least amount of sense.

Two: The philosophical phase.

This is the phase where Guam’s leaders, such as Gov. Camacho, see the buildup as an overwhelming and indefinable problem and leave the task, as Keats wrote, to the poet “capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

Third:  The paranoid phase.

With the troops, military and the aircraft carrier parked in the harbor, comes the third phase,  the paranoid phase.

As Guam's military profile increases, so does the fear that something may happen. They go hand-in-hand. At some point, the fear will be processed, buried deep, and become a rarely noticed part of the psychological landscape. But it is still there.

Pacific Daily News:  Guthertz welcomes missile defense system for Guam, Oct. 28, 2010

Sen. Judith Guthertz says she welcomes word that a missile defense system for Guam is in the works.

 “To residents of the continental United States, the possibility of a ballistic missile strike anywhere near them is a pretty remote possibility," Guthertz stated in a press release. But on Guam, "a trigger-happy and nuclear armed regime in nearby North Korea" has already demonstrated that this American territory in Asia is within its range, according to Guthertz, who is seeking re-election. 

Since the announcement of the $15 billion Guam military buildup, those living within the potential bulls eye have wondered how they are supposed to be protected in the event of a shooting war, said Guthertz. 

The buildup isn't about North Korea and a random missile launch. It's about China. It's always been about China, the country no one wants to name (because they own our banks and manufacturing production capability).

Robert D. Kaplan, a frequent and influential writer in DC on global security issues and expert in stirring up paranoia explains why Guam should feel paranoid in an op-ed in the Washington Post.

We underestimate the importance of what is occurring between China and Taiwan, at the northern end of the South China Sea. With 270 flights per week between the countries, and hundreds of missiles on the mainland targeting the island, China is quietly incorporating Taiwan into its dominion. Once it becomes clear, a few years or a decade hence, that the United States cannot credibly defend Taiwan, China will be able to redirect its naval energies beyond the first island chain in the Pacific (from Japan south to Australia) to the second island chain (Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) and in the opposite direction, to the Indian Ocean. [emphasis added]

Jurassic Guam

I’m still not clear on chaos? – Dr. Ellie Sattler. (Laura Dern), in the movie Jurassic Park.

It simply deals with unpredictability in complex systems. Its only principle is the Butterfly Effect. A butterfly can flap its wings in Peking and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine. – Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum).

The U.S. planners running the Guam buildup have something in common with the people who operated InGen, the company that created Jurassic Park. They are so confident in their ability to succeed that they are blind to the weaknesses in their planning.

John Hammond (the character played by Richard Attenborough), the CEO of InGen, illustrates the problem. Each time a concern was raised, Hammond had a ready answer.

The full fifty mile of perimeter fence are in place? -- Donald Gennaro, a lawyer who represented the investors backing InGen. (He was played by Martin Ferrero).

And the concrete moats, and the motion sensor tracking systems. Donald, dear boy, do try to relax and enjoy yourself –Hammond.

Hammond saw the problems facing Jurassic Park as a checklist. He believed that by mitigating each problem, he could control his park. But Isla Nublar descended into chaos not because of the failure of any one thing on the checklist, but because of a series of unforeseen and unexpected events across a range of issues. Dr. Malcolm’s warning had been plain: complexity increases unpredictability.

What Guam and Jurassic Park Share

Guam faces a similar problem with the military buildup. The buildup is reshaping Guam and is creating a system that in total is more complex than the list of mitigation strategies it identifies in the EIS.

The dinosaurs on Jurassic Park started eating people only after a series of things of things went wrong: A tropical storm muddied roads at the same time a disgruntled employee was attempting a theft; a flawed security system; computer systems without backups, and, of course, the ability of the dinosaurs to override genetic controls to limit their reproduction. All these things combined to cripple the park.

The EIS doesn’t, and can’t, consider how all the things it seeks to accomplish will interact and what new risks will emerge for Guam.

The Fictional 'No Action Alternative'

Buildup opponents believe that the sum total of the changes the military will bring to the island’s infrastructure, environment and culture, will be too much for the island to bear. But the government has not responded to their concern because it can’t. The EIS doesn’t look at the buildup as a connected system of enormous complexity. Instead, it addresses one issue at a time. The comment responses make that clear.

In its summary of the 10,000 comments about the buildup, the EIS doesn’t recognize, as a category, those who oppose the buildup, the fictional “no action alternative.” The military's planners are as blind and as arrogant as Hammond.

But even in its piecemeal, checklist approach to Guam's future, the EIS analysis can be horribly lame.

John, the kind of control you're attempting is not possible. If there's one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories. It crashes through barriers. Painfully, maybe even .. dangerously, but and ... well, there it is. – Malcolm.

A revealing aspect of the EIS is how it reports the buildup's expected population impact. For instance, it estimates that in 2012 “dependents of off-island workers” will number 11,184. Why didn’t the EIS round-off its estimate and provide, as well, an estimated range? (Vol. 1, page 44).

The EIS Uses False Precision to Disguise its Fictions

The intent of precise population figures may be to give the impression to Guam that the EIS planners really know what they are doing, when all they may be doing is masking their uncertainty about the actual impact.

And does anyone really know, for instance, what impact 18,000 or so foreign laborers will have on Guam – a population increase of 10% alone? No.

The EIS talks about the need for recreational activities for foreign workers, cultural sensitivity training and organized outings, but it can’t imagine how those workers will interact with the local population, the environment, and how they may ultimately impact the island. The massive increase in population, not just from foreign labor, defines unpredictability.

The EIS's Failure

In 2000, Bill Joy, then chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, looked at the problem of complexity in an essay published in Wired, titled, Why the future doesn’t need us. One of the things he examined was the anti-technology argument raised by the so-called Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski.

Kaczynski's dystopian vision describes unintended consequences, a well-known problem with the design and use of technology, and one that is clearly related to Murphy's law -- "Anything that can go wrong, will." (Actually, this is Finagle's law, which in itself shows that Finagle was right.) Our overuse of antibiotics has led to what may be the biggest such problem so far: the emergence of antibiotic-resistant and much more dangerous bacteria. Similar things happened when attempts to eliminate malarial mosquitoes using DDT caused them to acquire DDT resistance; malarial parasites likewise acquired multi-drug-resistant genes.

The cause of many such surprises seems clear: The systems involved are complex, involving interaction among and feedback between many parts. Any changes to such a system will cascade in ways that are difficult to predict; this is especially true when human actions are involved.

The difference between problems Joy described and what the buildup will do for Guam, is not a reach. Guam is an island, a world to itself with limited resources, fragile on many levels, and with an environment that is completely interconnected.

Guam is now about to be rearranged by the U.S. government, which has prepared what is at best a grocery list of changes. But the EIS does not know how the buildup will change Guam and what new risks may emerge out of all the changes it will bring. The EIS does not prepare Guam for what’s ahead.

Leaked memo: Relieving Guam traffic congestion

The Guam government published a statement this week about a rise in traffic congestion on the island.

However, a source has informed us that what appeared on the Gov. Guam Web site was not a complete version.

The material below was forwarded to us by a source who requested anonymity. Please send a thank you to this anonymous person.

This is the complete, unedited version of the traffic congestion letter. It includes a previously undisclosed response from a U.S. official. The complete Gov Guam memo and the U.S. response is printed below.

A STATEMENT FROM THE ACTING GOVERNOR OF GUAM

August 11, 2010

Acting Governor Michael W. Cruz, M.D. issued the following statement regarding recent traffic congestion on our island’s roadways.

“I have asked the Director of Public Works, a representative from the Division of Federal Highways, and the Chief of the Guam Police Department to aggressively consider all plausible options to alleviate the ongoing congestion on our roads. I have called for a meeting early tomorrow with these officials to determine our best course of action. Though I am confident that reasonable and effective solutions will emerge from this approach, I will ask them to consider the use of bypass lanes; a change in government hours of operation from 9 a.m. - 6 p.m., allowing for lighter traffic flow; and the execution of construction work after normal working hours.

We anticipate that traffic congestion will increase during the military build-up, exacerbating current conditions, and possibly reaching gridlock levels. It may become impossible to drive anywhere between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. and 6 p.m., and some employers, including the Guam Government, may have to create third shifts and weekend rotations to alleviate road congestion.

This concern has been transmitted to Hon. Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, Assistant Secretary for Energy, Installations and Environment, Department of the Navy, who has responded to this concern. Her response is as follows:

Dear Hon. Acting Governor Michael Cruz:

The Final Environment Impact Statement (“EIS”) for the Project anticipates increased congestion and outlines a number of road improvement projects to mitigate this impact. Construction workers will be required by their employers to use buses. Your concerns about increased traffic have been noted.

This Department has asked the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ("DARPA") to investigate alternatives to vehicular traffic. The initial finding are promising.

DARPA is developing a hot air balloon transportation system that can be widely deployed. Exhaustive testing has shown that balloons can be inflated using common household appliances (Please See Illustration One, below) and then attached in sufficient numbers to a lawn chair to give the chair and its occupant lift. Computer models suggest that smooth transportation from the South, for instance, to other parts of the island is possible.

We regret that Guam Balloon Commuters (GBC) will have to avoid Pagat because of the danger posed by firing ranges.

DARPA believes, and we concur, that balloon travel is a viable commuting option. GBC testing is scheduled to begin next month.

Respectfully,

Jackalyne Pfannenstiel

Assistant Secretary for Energy, Installations and Environment, Department of the Navy

Illustration One

Guam EIS: 'sky will not turn to black clouds'

The only thing worth reading in the EIS are the letters and comments from individuals. Decades from now, when the era of flying saucers and teleporting (as in 'Beam me up, Scotty') arrives and the military's idea of "force projection" has moved off planet and from Guam, people will still read these letters to discover what the island thought at this turn in its history.

The EIS isn't a planning document; it's a emotional trigger. The emotional response can appear in almost any issue affected by the buildup.

A good number of people, for instance, cited a fear of crime from this concentration of troops and the off-island populations arriving to support them. (There were 274 letters out of 10,000 on this topic, says EIS comment summary in Vol. 10).

The EIS seeks to mitigate risks, but each risk it addresses compounds fear that the buildup brings too many threats. The mega-risk are geo-political: "Guam’s higher military profile could increase its potential as an American target for terrorists and adversaries during a possible conflict," wrote the Congressional Research Service this year. The EIS answers that concern with an entire chapter that considers a missile defense system for Guam.

The military isn't taking Guam to a prosperous future, it's taking the island back in time, specifically to the Cold War era of the 1950s-1960s when elementary school students were trained to 'duck and cover' and react like turtles in the event of a Soviet attack.

There was a turtle by the name of Bert

and Bert the turtle was very alert;
when danger threatened him he never got hurt ...

One Guam, Green Guam or Isle of Fear. Take your pick. Guam is being turned into the new century version of Dr. Strangelove, with missile defenses and sirens against the unknown enemy. A diorama of the planet's future.

If the vision for Guam is one of increasing external and internal threats, what then best describes this world? For an answer, we have this EIS letter by a Guam high school student.* It immediately disarms the reader into believing one thing, and then quickly moves to its real point. It’s the work of a talented writer.

We the people of Guam can benefit from the military build-up. From the jobs, new stores opening, and roads being paved. But the destruction from the build-up will soon eat our island, no more scenic views, beautiful trees, the sky will soon turn to black clouds, we will no longer have oxygen, we will no longer be able to access the ancient Chamorro sites, people’s lands homes, land will be taken away, memories of their childhood, years of hard work maintaining their lives on their lands. We will soon be an island known for being covered with buildings, animal wildlife will fade-away, traffic will only get worse. Crimes will rise drastically. There’s nothing more I can say, but we’ll know when the military is here, their destruction will begin. -- Vol. 10, Individuals Part 11, Page 786

Here is the EIS response to the letter’s most sweeping point (EIS comment reference: I-1929-003): “Potential air quality impacts due to the proposed action are considered to be less than significant. The sky will not turn to black clouds, nor will oxygen be depleted as a result of the military build-up.”

A literal response to black clouds and oxygen depletion are exploding missiles, but in the student's essay the arrival of black clouds is about disappearance and loss. It reminds of this beautiful post by Drea of Waiting for Wonderland about the legend of a very big fish that was eating the island and what the women of Guam did to save it.

The next EIS letter is simply incredible. Here is the whole of it:

I feel like the ko ko bird, who, after thousands of years, lost its ability to fly because there no predators for them in Guam. Natural selection does that to us sometimes, clips our wings even though we may need them in case of invasion centuries later

Thousands of brown wing bodies with underbelly white stripes moves as flashes across the beds of forests, and their shallow nests were built into the ground. Think of open mouths and morning sunlight.

I know two things about Guam. One is that right after World War II the U.S. “accidentally” let the brown tree snake into a cargo ship on its way to Guam. Since the ko ko couldn’t fly they were devoured – nests, chick, origin and all.

The other things I know about Guam is that Spain imported carabao, a species of water buffalo, in the seventeenth century. They have been a national symbol and the herds were plentiful. They are used to pull carabao boats, are ridden in festivals and are silent creatures unless startled. Since they dwindled the U.S. Naval base came to the rescue and offered a preservation “protected” by the military but really ended up serving as a field of extermination. They were contaminating the water supply on the U.S. occupied Naval Base which doesn’t belong where it is to begin with.

I feel like the ko ko bird. My nest was on the ground. I was a flash in the forest. I took to the water. You came in accidentally and saw my natural habitat as a feast, now the nest is decimated and you’re perched in the highest tree looking out over a land you know nothing about but claim with pride – Volume 10, Individuals Part 1. Page 32.

This following letter makes more expansive detailed points about the buildup, but it’s introduction is stirring. The last line is near the end of the letter.

Whenever I got to the beach and take my dog for a walk I cannot help but to admire the beauty that lies right in front of my eyes. The beautiful soft white sand that glimmers when the rays of the sun shines down on them, the magnificent horizon that seems like it never ends and the playful waves that say hi to me whenever I come around. These wonderful creations make me feel like I am living in a paradise. A paradise that the next generation would not be able to see anymore if I let the military buildup take everything away to the place I called my home. … the military buildup is not the hope the island has been waiting for. -- Vol. 10, Individuals Part II, Page 1229.

End Notes:

* Even though these comments are part of a published public record, I left the names out to keep from sending the authors into the search engines. That may be an easily fixed mistake. But because this material is difficult to locate, something ought to be done to improve access to the hundreds of other letters that deserve a wide audience. References at the end of each letter should make it easy to see the original. These letters were typed from the pdfs, so any errors are mine.

To find PDF files, see Guam EIS Final Documents. Click on Vol. 10 and individual sections will appear. PDFs are large, more than 100MBs each and it's why I didn't link to them directly.

Photo at the top of the page is from: Vol 10, Part 3, Page 124. It is a work by Anonymous, titled: "Please Print Clearly."

EIS rules out 'Green Guam'

This week Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn said the U.S. will incorporate "green technology" to help meet the military's needs. "Our collective investment in wind, solar, hydroelectric and wave-generated power will make Guam an environmental leader among Pacific islands," he said.

But Lynn's statement is at odds with what the EIS says: Alternative energy sources were considered but discarded for baseload supply as this supply must be extremely reliable. Solar and wind are not reliable enough and there is no currently available economical power storage medium to augment them.

The EIS assessment on the inability of alternative energy to meet the military's needs was included in a comment section. An individual wrote: "Please use solar and wind power. The equipment is available and affordable and the investment will pay for itself." (Vol 10, Individuals Part II, page 264 or web site comment 1349)

Here is the complete EIS response to that comment:

Thank you for your comment. Alternative energy sources were considered but discarded for baseload supply as this supply must be extremely reliable. Solar and wind are not reliable enough and there is no currently available economical power storage medium to augment them. Also alternative energy is very costly. Per the December 2009 “Watts & Volts” newsletter published by the IREA of Colorado, a very sunny state, “A recent study by Tufts University economics professor Gilbert Metcalf states, ‘Solar power currently costs 3.5 to 4 times the price of conventional power,’ but when stripped of subsidies and preferential tax treatment, ‘solar power is between 570 percent and 887 percent more expensive to produce than coal power.” We realize coal power is not available on Guam, but this demonstrates that solar power is not cheap. Both solar and wind require duplicative investments, one for the alternative energy and another for the conventional backup.DoD, however, is mandated to provide a certain percentage of power via alternative energy. So, for new installations, solar water heating and photovoltaics would be considered for new installations. In addition, new DoD development would strive to achieve at least LEED Silver, requiring energy conservation be built into the new facilities. Conservation is the best alternative energy source!

The EIS selective math reference is suspect and its counterpoint to the comment is incomplete. The EIS framed its answer in terms of baseload, which means the minimum amount of power needed for all power needs. Alternative energy is, for now, mostly supplemental.

Moreover, the person who wrote this comment didn't ask about baseload; all this person wanted was for the military to use alternative energy. The EIS writers decided to not only talk down to this commenter but blow smoke as well.

The EIS is correct in that initial investment in solar is high and the government, obviously, can't use tax credits. But all the lack of tax credits does is to extend the payback period, it doesn't eliminate it. There are other benefits as well that aren't easily calculated

If the military reduces its need for power via solar that in turn reduces the need for additional power generation capacity, and since it is the military's goal to make Guam 'green,' rejecting solar on the basis of something someone at EIS HQ Googled is not sound planning.

The EIS response doesn't rule out alternative energy use. There's a DOD requirement that a certain percentage of generation come from alternative sources, but the overall message here is not "Green Guam," but more of: The DOD will meet minimum requirements.

The EIS response is also not the "Green Guam" message that Lynn and the White House has been handing out, a cornerstones of the PR offensive. It illustrates how out-of-control this buildup is. It has too many moving parts and no one understands how they all work together.