Why Deleveraging is so painful

Posted on March 29, 2014 by

Why a recovery is at least 7 years away: Economy Falling Years Behind Full Speed

6 Apr 2009. Louis Uchitelle. New York Times.

As the recession grinds on, more and more of the nation’s means of production — its workers, its factories, its retail outlets, its freight lines, its bank lending, even its new inventions — are being mothballed. This idled capacity, like baseball players after a winter off, takes time to bring back into robust use. The mathematics are daunting. The shortfall is running at more than $1 trillion in annual sales and other transactions. Only once since the Great Depression has there been such a severe loss of output — in the 1981-82 recession — and after that downturn, it was seven years before the economy regained the lost production.  Recovery from the current recession could be similarly sluggish.

[The downturn is FOREVER because energy makes everything happen, and peak world-wide production was reached in 2005, so 7 years is quite optimistic…]

A 10% price drop can lead to a loss of 50% or more

In 2008, money market funds stopped buying commercial paper issued by Structured Investment Vehicles.

This led to deleveraging:  less money and slow economic growth

Banking regulations require the structured investment vehicles to be brought their books, which in turn requires that they shore up their capital base by selling new shares or shedding other assets.

Every dollar that is used for this purpose is a dollar that can’t be used to make loans for corporate buybacks, commercial customers or hedge funds.

Without such loans, banks’ earnings and growth are very much reduced.

Worse yet, the buying power of the two main drivers of the last bull market — hedge funds and corporate Treasurys — is crippled because the leverage they’ve used to reap big profits has suddenly turned against them.

As hedge funds deleverage in fits and starts, much of their inventory is going back to bank balance sheets. This is known in the banking business as involuntary asset growth, and it isn’t good. It forces banks to issue more new equity to comply with international capitalization rules, further undermining current shareholders.

Deleveraging is going on among corporations and individuals as well, leading to less buying power for both. That leaves less money available for homes, cars, televisions and travel, further leading to the sort of buyers strike characteristic of long periods of slow or stagnant economic growth

How Deleveraging works

Assume a hedge fund has $20 of real capital.

If a bank allows it to leverage five times its capital, the fund can acquire $100 of risky assets with $20 of equity and $80 of debt.

Now the assets fall by 10% in value, or $10.

The hedge fund’s leverage suddenly increases to 9 times: $10 of equity (the original amount less the loss) and $80 of debt now supports $90 of assets.

If the permitted leverage stays constant at 5 times, the hedge fund must sell $50 of assets, or 50% of its holdings. If lenders reduce permissible leverage to 3 times the loss, then the hedge fund must then sell $70 of assets, or 70% of its holdings. This process is bad enough in normal markets, but when buyers are scarce, prices of these involuntary sales are knocked down to levels that can wipe out the fund.

[My comment: Quantitative Easing threw trillions at the 1% who’ve leveraged it into bubbles across the financial landscape in commodities, housing in select areas, stocks, and so on.  Consequently, in the next financial crash, the deleveraging will be even worse than the 2008 crash].

Posted in Economic Decline | Comments Off on Why Deleveraging is so painful

Bonuses and salaries way too high at Banks, Wall Street, Corporations

Posted on March 28, 2014 by

The “Paid-What-You’re-Worth” Myth

March 13, 2014. Robert Reich. New York Times and robertreich.org

It’s often assumed that people are paid what they’re worth. According to this logic, minimum wage workers aren’t worth more than the $7.25 an hour they now receive. If they were worth more, they’d earn more. Any attempt to force employers to pay them more will only kill jobs.

According to this same logic, CEOs of big companies are worth their giant compensation packages, now averaging 300 times pay of the typical American worker. They must be worth it or they wouldn’t be paid this much. Any attempt to limit their pay is fruitless because their pay will only take some other form.

Fifty years ago, when General Motors was the largest employer in America, the typical GM worker got paid $35 an hour in today’s dollars. Today, America’s largest employer is Walmart, and the typical Walmart workers earns $8.80 an hour.  [GM workers were paid that much because they had a strong union.  Back then over 33% of workers were in unions that raised wages and benefits for all, not just the union workers.  But Walmart workers can’t get a better deal — less than 7% of workers are unionized.]

The result has been a race to the bottom.

Today’s CEOs who rake in 300 times the pay of average workers aren’t “worth” it. [They’re paid that much because they appoint the boards that decide executive pay].

If you still believe people are paid what they’re worth, take a look at Wall Street bonuses. Last year’s average bonus was up 15% over the year before, to more than $164,000. It was the largest average Wall Street bonus since the 2008 financial crisis and the third highest on record, according to New York’s state comptroller. Remember, we’re talking bonuses, above and beyond salaries.

Wall Street paid out a whopping $26.7 billion in bonuses last year. [And guess what — You’re paying their bonuses and salaries!]

[Why? How? The money you’ve parked in small banks earns less than big banks because they’re perceived as being more risky and less likely to get bailed out than the huge “too big to fail” banks in the next financial crash.  So large banks can borrow money at a lower rate and at the same time charge you high interest, making money both coming and going].

How large is this hidden subsidy? [Enough to add up to $83 billion a year at the 10 biggest Wall Street banks].  Without the subsidy, no [$26.7 billion in bonus].

[Most of the $83 billion ($64 billion) goes to the top 5 banks — JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo. and Goldman Sachs. [$64 Billion is roughly equals their annual profits — so no subsidy and both bonuses and profits disappear].

Wall Street bankers [didn’t work] harder or were more clever or insightful than most other Americans.

And why, exactly, do these institutions continue to have such privileges? Why hasn’t Congress used the antitrust laws to cut them down to size so they’re not too big to fail, or at least taxed away their hidden subsidy (which, after all, results from their taxpayer-financed bailout)? 

Perhaps it’s because Wall Street also accounts for a large proportion of campaign donations to major candidates for Congress and the presidency of both parties.

America’s low-wage workers … can’t afford to make major campaign contributions and they have no political clout.

According to the Institute for Policy Studies, the $26.7 billion of bonuses Wall Street banks paid out last year would be enough to more than double the pay of every one of America’s 1,085,000 full-time minimum wage workers. 

The remainder of the $83 billion of hidden subsidy going to those same banks would almost be enough to double what the government now provides low-wage workers in the form of wage subsidies under the Earned Income Tax Credit.

But I don’t expect Congress to make these sorts of adjustments any time soon.

The “paid-what-your-worth” argument is fundamentally misleading because it ignores power, overlooks institutions, and disregards politics. As such, it lures the unsuspecting into thinking nothing whatever should be done to change what people are paid, because nothing can be done.

Don’t buy it.

Posted in Corporate Welfare | Comments Off on Bonuses and salaries way too high at Banks, Wall Street, Corporations

FDIC Sues 16 Banks for Fraud by Manipulating Global Interest Rate

Posted on March 28, 2014 by

FDIC sues 16 Banks for rigging the Libor Rate

March 2014. New York Times.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) sued 16 banks for fraud because they conspired to set a crucial global interest rate low to enrich themselves.   Many cities and municipal agencies in the United States have also filed suits,

The banks included some of the world’s biggest banks (i.e. Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase). Four of the banks, Britain’s Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland; Switzerland’s biggest bank, UBS; and Rabobank of the Netherlands, have paid about $2.6 billion to settle these charges.

The FDIC says that 10 banks they took over in the financial crisis failed due to this rate manipulation and the are suing to recover the losses they suffered.

The banks rigged the London interbank offered rate, known as Libor, from August 2007 to mid-2011 (or beyond).

The Global Banking Game Is Rigged, and the FDIC Is Suing

April 13, 2014 by Ellen Brown.  Web of Debt blog, ellenbrown.com
Posted in Banking | Comments Off on FDIC Sues 16 Banks for Fraud by Manipulating Global Interest Rate

Scientists and Environmentalists for Population Stabilization

Posted on March 27, 2014 by

This fantastic list is from March 2014, so to see the must up-to-date bibliography go here:

Scientists and Environmentalists for Population Stabilization bibliography

Arrow, K., B. Bolin, R. Costanza, P. Dasgupta, C. Folke, C.S. Holling, B. Jansson, S. Levin, K. Maler, C. Perrings, D. Pimentel. 1995. Economic growth, carrying capacity, and the environment. Science 268: 520-521. link

Beck, R. and L. Kolankiewicz. 2000. The environmental movement’s retreat from advocating U.S. population stabilization (1970-1998): A first draft of history. Journal of Policy History 12:123-156. link

Beier, P., and R.F. Noss. 1998. Do habitat corridors provide connectivity? Conservation Biology 12:1241-1252. link

Brown, J.J., K. E. Limburg, J.R. Waldman, K. Stephenson, E. Glenn, F. Juanes, and A. Jordaan. 2013. Fish and hydropower on the U.S. Atlantic coast: failed fisheries policies from half-way technologies. Conservation Letters 6(4): 280-286. link

Camarota, S. R. Beck, and L. Kolankiewicz. 2003. Outsmarting smart growth: population growth, immigration, and the problem of sprawl. Center for Immigration Studies, Washington DC. 122 pp. link

Caraco, N. F. and J. J. Cole. 1999. Human impact on nitrate export: An analysis using major world rivers. Ambio 28(2):167-170. link

Cassils, J.A. and M. Weld. 2009. Why Canada needs a population policy. A presentation submitted to the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration of the House of Commons of the Parliament of Canada in 2001. Population Institute Canada, Ottowa, Ontario. link

Christensen, N.L., A.M. Bartuska, J.H. Brown, S. Carpenter, C. D’Antonio, R. Francis, J.F. Franklin, J.A. MacMahon, R.F. Noss, D.J. Parsons, C.H. Peterson, M.G. Turner, and R.G. Woodmansee. 1996. The report of the Ecological Society of America Committee on the Scientific Basis for Ecosystem Management. Ecological Applications 6:665-691. Link

Cole, J.J. 2012. The carbon cycle, with a brief introduction to global biogeochemistry. Pp. 109-135, in K. C. Weyathers, D. L. Strayer and G. E. Likens (eds.). Fundamentals of Ecosystem Science. Academic Press, Waltham, Massachusetts. link

Cole, J.J., B.L. Peierls, N.F. Caraco and M.L. Pace.1993. Nitrogen loading of rivers as a human-driven process. pp. 141-157. In: McDonnell, M. and S. Pickett (eds.). Humans as components of ecosystems. Springer-Verlag, New York. link

Cole, J. J., N. F. Caraco, G. W. Kling and T.W. Kratz.1994. Carbon dioxide supersaturation in the surface waters of lake. Science 265:1568-1570. link

Cole, J.J., S.R. Carpenter, M.L. Pace, M.C. Van de Bogert, J.L. Kitchell, and J.R. Hodgson. 2006. Differential support of lake food webs by three types of terrestrial organic carbon. Ecology Letters. 9: 558-568. link

Cole, J.J., Y.T.Prairie, N.F. Caraco, W.H. McDowell, L.J. Tranvik, R.G. Striegl, C.M. Duarte, P. Kortelainen, J.A. Downing, J. Middleburg, and J. Melack. 2007. Plumbing the global carbon cycle: Integrating inland waters into the terrestrial carbon budget. Ecosystems 10: 171-184. link

Costanza, R., R. D’Arge, R. de Groot, S. Farber, M. Grasso, B. Hannon, K. Limburg, S. Naeem, R. V. O’Neill, J. Paruelo, R. G. Raskin, P. Sutton, and M. van den Belt. 1997. The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387:253-260. link

Costanza, R., M. Daly, C. Folke, P. Hawken, C.S. Holling, A.J. McMichael, D. Pimentel and D. Rapport. 2000. Managing our environmental portfolio. Bioscience 50:149-155. link

Day, J.W. JR., C.A. Hall, A. Yañez-Arancibia, D. Pimentel, C.I. Marti, and W.J. Mitsch. 2009. Ecology in times of scarcity. Bioscience 59 (4):321-331. link

Day, J.W., M. Moerschbaecher, D. Pimentel, C. Hall, and A. Yañez-Arancibia. 2013. Sustainability and place: How emerging mega-trends of the 21st centurary will affects humans and nature at the landscape level. Ecological Engineering (in press). link

Downing, J.A., Y.T. Prairie, J.J. Cole, C.M. Duarte, L.J. Tranvik, R.G. Striegl, W.H. McDowell, P. Kortelainen, N.F. Caraco, J.M. Melack, and J. Middelburg. 2006. The global abundance and size distribution of lakes, ponds, and impoundments. Limnology and Oceanography. 51(5):2388-2397. link

Downing, J.A., J.J. Cole, J.J. Middelburg, R.G. Striegl, C.M. Duarte, P. Kortelainen, Y.T. Prairie, and K.A. Laube. 2006. Sediment organic carbon burial in agriculturally eutrophic impoundments over the last century. Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 22:GB1018. link

Giampietro, M. and D. Pimentel.1993. The tightening conflict: population, energy use, and the ecology of agriculture. The NPG Forum, October. Negative Population Growth Inc, Teaneck, NJ. link

Hardaway, R. 1994. Population, Law and the Environment. Prager Publications, Westport, Connecticut.

Hardaway, R. 1997. Population and the environment: Toward a theory of environmental Malthusianism. International Journal of Environment and Pollution 7:8-25.

Hardaway, R. 1997. Environmental Malthusianism: Integrating population and environmental policy. Environmental Law 27: 1209-1244. link

Hardaway, R. 2003. Water crisis:  It’s the population, stupid. Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado, 28 March 2003 at A-46. link

Hardaway, R. 2006. Corporate greed fuels amnesty drive. The Denver Post, Denver, Colorado, 21 June 2006. link

Hardaway, R. 2007. Global warming debate ignores the 800-pound gorilla. The Toledo Blade, Toledo, Ohio, 9 February 2007 at A-9. link

Hardaway, R. 2007. Bush’s amnesty agenda actually anti-immigrant. Home News Tribune, Central Central New Jersey, 9 November 2007 at A10. link

Hardaway, R. 2008. Honesty the best policy for environmental rules. Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colorado, 20 July 2008.

Hardaway, R. 2008. Leaders should be honest about cost of climate action. Buffalo News, Buffalo, New York, 24 July 2008. link

Hardaway, R. 2010. Citizen by birth? Check the Constitution. Aol News, The Huffington Post, August 13, 2010. link

Hardaway, R. 2013. 10 immigration reform myths. The Blog, Huff Post Politics, 15 August 2013. link

Hardaway, R. 2014. As the world welcomes its seven billionth human: Reflections on population, law, and the environment. Sustainable Development Law & Policy 13: 4-14.

Hardaway, R., K. Dacres, and J. Swearingen. 1994. Tropical forest conservation legislation and policy: A global perspective. Whittier Law Review 5:919-948. link

Hayden, T.A., K.E. Limburg, and W.E. Pine, III. 2012. Using otolith chemistry tags and growth patterns to distinguish movements and provenance of native fish in Grand Canyon. River Research and Applications (online; DOI 10.1002/rra.2627). link

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Hull, D. 1977. Life circumstances and physical illness: A cross disciplinary survey of research content and method for the decade 1965–1975. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 21: 115-139.  link

Hull, D. 1979. Migration, adaptation, and illness: A review. Social Science & Medicine. Part A: Medical Psychology & Medical Sociology 13: 25-36. link

Hull, D. 1981. By land and sea: Hispanic press at the southern borders of the United States. In: Strangers in the world. Edited by Leo Eitinger and David Schwarz. Hans Huber Publishers, Bern, Switzerland: 234-263.

Hull, D. 1998. Malthus in the sky with diamonds. The Social Contract 8(3): 227-230.  link

Hull, D. 1999. Cry, the overcrowded country. The Social Contract 9(4): 219-223.  link

Hull, D. 2000. Amnesty ad infinitum: How much are beaver skins worth? Santa Barbara News-Press, Santa Barbara, California. July 16, 2000, pp. G1-G2. link

Hull, D. 2003. Growth and the thirty pound hummingbird: A brief tribute to Garrett and Jane Hardin. The Garrett Hardin Society website, October 21, 2003.  link

Hull, D. 2004. The Sierra Club: Why the present leadership still needs to take a hike. The Social Contract 14(3): 194-196. link

Hull, D. 2007.  Unchecked immigration leaves blacks burdened. Santa Monica Daily Press, Santa Monica, California. March 8, 2007. link
‎
Hull, D. 2010. Language and culture wars in the battle over amnesty: Where we are now and what we need to understand. The Social Contract 20(4): 253-255.  link

Hull, D. 2011. Many environmental scientists are wayward or cowed when faced with an Irrefutable truth: Too many people destroy natural resources. The Social Contract 21(3): 3-4. link

Hull, D. 2011. The Dream Act: How about a billion in scholarship funds from Carlos Slim Helu and five of His billionaire friends? The Social Contract 22(1): 38-41. link

Hull, D., L. Bouvier, and D.Schneider. 2003. California’s population growth 1990-2002: Study reveals virtually all growth from immigration. The Social Contract 13(4): 250-257. link

Hull, D. and M. Cutler. 2010. U.S. not up to task of screening 10 million amnesty applicants. Noozhawk, Santa Barbara, California. April 21, 2010.  link

Hurlbert, S.H. 1990. Immigration policy must be enforced. San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego, California. 3 October 1990. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2001. Wall Street Journal needs to open its eyes, not border. Salton Basin-Colorado Delta Mothersite, San Diego State University, San Diego, California. 4 July 2001. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2001. The globalist copout. The Social Contract 10(3): 193-194. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2004. Water, population growth and regional (non)planning. Californians for Population Stabilization, Santa Barbara, California. CAPS News 45(2): 1. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2010. Boycott San Diego – not Arizona. The Arizona Republic, Tuscon, Arizona. 7 August 2010. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2010. Immigration numbers – A response to Hidinger. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 8:68.

Hurlbert, S.H. 2011. Wives of the Bishop of Worcester: the Ecological Society of America and globalist copoutism. The Social Contract 20(3): 7-13. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2011. Frontiers, immigration, and political censorship. The Social Contract 20(3):16-20. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2011. A symposium and a lake in multiple contexts: a prefatory essay on Salton Sea science and politics. The Social Contract 20(3): 27-36. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2011. Pacific salmon, immigration, and censors: unreliability of the cowed technocrat. The Social Contract 20(3): 42-46. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2011. Is the AAAS oblivious to U.S. overpopulation and its consequences, or is it just another censor? The Social Contract 22(1): 64-68. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2011. The Salton Sea Preservation Plan: a preliminary sketch. Salton Basin-Colorado Delta Mothersite, San Diego State University, San Diego, California. 28 November 2011. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2011. Tribute to an ‘obnoxious’ ecocatalytical demotechnician: Jack Vallentyne on population. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics 12: 21-34. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2012. Population camel gets its nose into ecologists’ tent: hopes are high that the rest will follow. The Social Contract 23(1): 68-76. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2013. Critical need for modification of U.S. population policy. Conservation Biology 27: 887-889. link

Hurlbert, S.H. 2013. Scientists and Environmentalists for Population Stabilization: who said academics are hopelessly timid or hopelessly globalist? Invited presentation, Progressives for Immigration Reform Annual Meeting, September 30, 2013, Arlington, Virginia. Slides PDF – Text PDF (These two pdfs should be viewed side-by-side; numbering of text paragraphs corresponds to numbering of slides).

Hurlbert, S.H., J.S. Dainer and A.C. Scholz. 2006. Environmental voting records of members of the U.S. Congress, 2006. Salton Basin-Colorado Delta Mothersite, San Diego State University, San Diego, California. 34 pp. link

Hurlbert, S.H., J.S. Dainer, M.A. Tiffany, C. Trees, G.F. Gebler, and E.B. Small. 2000. Population growth and the Salton Sea: the major long-term issue, out from under the rug. Poster presentation, Salton Sea Symposium, Desert Hot Springs, California 13-14 January 2000. link

Hurlbert, S.H. and K.M. Doyle. 2002. Water policy, urban developers and monkey wrench gangs. San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego, California. 26 September 2002. link

Kelly, E.N., D.W. Schindler, P.V. Hodson, J.W. Short, R. Radmanovich and C.C. Nielsen. 2010. Oil sands development contributes toxic elements at low concentrations to the Athabasca River and its tributaries. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107:16178-16183. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2014. Farewell to Joyce Tarnow: Force of nature and a force for good. The Social Contract 24(3): 17-21 link

Kolankiewicz, L. 1981. British Columbia: Canada’s battleground on the Pacific. Sierra, July/August 1981, pp. 22-27. Washington DC

Kolankiewicz, L. 2000. Immigration, population, and the new Census Bureau projections. Center for Immigration Studies, Kolankiewicz, L. 2002.

Population growth: the neglected dimension of America’s persistent energy/environmental problems. NumbersUSA, Arlington, Virginia. 37pp. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2009. Immigration, population growth, and environmentalist hypocrisy on the border fence. Californians for Population Stabilization, Santa Barbara, California, CAPS News 50(2): 3. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2010. Earth Day founder disappointed in followers for neglecting overpopulation. Mother Nature Network blog, 20 April 2010. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2010. From big to bigger: how mass immigration and population growth have exacerbated America’s ecological footprint. Progressives for Immigration Reform, Washington DC. Policy Brief #10-1. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2011. Conservation legends decry overpopulation. Californians for Population Stabilization, Santa Barbara, California. Opinion essay, 3pp. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2011. Analysis of 2010 census misses the mark: impact of population growth ignored. Californians for Population Stabilization, Santa Barbara, California. CAPS Issues, July 2011. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2012. Cassandra’s heirs: can we improve on her fate? Californians for Population Stabilization, Santa Barbara, California. CAPS Issues. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2012. Overpopulation and the ocean. Californians for Population Stabilization, Santa Barbara, California. CAPS Issues. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2012. Overpopulation overwhelms salmon. Californians for Population Stabilization, Santa Barbara, California. CAPS Issues. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2012. Islands invaded, natives nuked. Californians for Population Stabilization, Santa Barbara, California. CAPS Issues. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2012. Too hot to touch? Global warming, population, and denial. Californians for Population Stabilization, Santa Barbara, California. CAPS Issues. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2012. Exploding Southwest population on collision course with water scarcity. Californians for Population Stabilization, Santa Barbara, California. CAPS Issues. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2013. Does the Sierra Club believe in borders? It depends. Californians for Population Stabilization, Santa Barbara, California. Blog post, 23 May 2013. 1p. link

Kolankiewicz, L. 2013. A biological holocaust in the making. Californians for Population Stabilization, Santa Barbara, California. Opinion essay, 11 March 2013. link

Kolankiewicz, L. and R. Beck. 2001. Weighing sprawl factors in large U.S. cities: a report on the nearly equal roles played by population growth and land use choices in the loss of farmland and natural habitat to urbanization. NumbersUSA, Arlington, Virginia. 47 pp. link

Kolankiewicz, L. and R. Beck. 2001. Sprawl in Florida. NumbersUSA, Arlington, Virginia. link

Kolankiewicz, L. and R. Beck. 2001. Population growth and sprawl in the Chesapeake Bay wWatershed. NumbersUSA, Arlington, Virginia. link

Kolankiewicz, L. and R. Beck. 2001. Sprawl in California: a report on quantifying the role of the state’s population boom. NumbersUSA, Arlington, Virginia. link

Kolankiewicz, L. and R. Beck. 2001. Forsaking fundamentals: the environmental establishment abandons U.S. population stabilization. Center for Immigration Studies, Washington DC. 68pp. link

Kolankiewicz, L. and S.A. Camarota. 2008. Immigration to the United States and world-wide greenhouse gas emissions. Center for Immigration Studies, Washington DC. Backgrounder, 10pp. link

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Machut, L.S., K.E. Limburg, R. E. Schmidt, and D. Dittman. 2007. Anthropogenic impacts on American eel demographics in Hudson River tributaries, New York. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 136: 1699-1713. link

Nachman, P. 2006. Let’s keep our eye on the prize. VDARE.com blog post, 3 August 2006. link

Nachman, P. 2006. Former Senator Alan Simpson ruefully recalls 1986 amnesty. VDARE.com blog post, 5 September 2006. link

Nachman, P. 2006. A VDARE.com reader talks to NC sheriff Jim (“Political correctness is going to cause us to lose this country”) Pendergraph. VDARE.com article, 25 October 2006. link

Nachman, P. 2006. Speaking up in a “nation of immigrants” audience. VDARE.com article, 7 November 2006. link

Nachman, P. 2007. Another branch of government is buckling under the load. VDARE.com blog post, 20 June 2007. link

Nachman, P. 2007. Realism from the trenches in Los Angeles. VDARE.com blog post, 24 Septermber 2007. link

Nachman, P. 2009. CCIR’s greatest hits: the reconquista rant audio clips. VDARE.com article, 14 January 2009. link

Nachman, P. 2009. A refresher on California’s illegal-alien tab. VDARE.com blog post, 2 June 2009. link

Nachman, P. 2010. Nachman’s short course on America’s immigration disaster. VDARE.com article, 2 January 2010. link

Nachman, P. 2010. Support Arizona by boycotting San Diego! VDARE.com blog post, 31 May 2010. link

Nachman, P. 2010. The anchor-baby issue: let’s keep it bubbling. VDARE blog post, 6 July 2010. VDARE.com blog post, 6 July 2010. link

Nachman, P. 2010. It’s sometimes immigrants who see most clearly what’s at stake. VDARE.com blog post, 19 October 2010. link

Nachman, P. 2013. Anti-amnesty preparation: see FAIR’s report and, thereby, know that EVERY enforcement promise is a lie. VDARE.com blog post, 31 January 2013. link

Nachman, P. 2013. Immigration reform bill won’t help the U.S. The Montana Standard, 4 June 2013. link

Nachman, P. 2013. NumbersUSA’s guides to the Senate’s horror bill (S.744) tell you what’s actually IN the bill. VDARE.com blog post, 17 June 2013. link

Nachman, P. 2013. Mass immigration and multiculturalism vs. freedom. VDARE.com blog post, 23 June 2013. link

Noss, R.F. 1983. A regional landscape approach to maintain diversity. BioScience 33:700-706.   link

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Noss, R.F., and A. Cooperrider. 1994. Saving Nature’s Legacy: Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity. Island Press, Washington, D.C. link

Noss, R.F., E.T. LaRoe, and J.M. Scott. 1995. Endangered Ecosystems of the United States: A Preliminary Assessment of Loss and Degradation. Biological Report 28. USDI National Biological Service, Washington, DC. link

Noss, R.F., C. Carroll, K. Vance-Borland, and G. Wuerthner. 2002. A multicriteria assessment of the irreplaceability and vulnerability of sites in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Conservation Biology 16: 895-908. link

Noss, R.F., J.F. Franklin, W.L. Baker, T. Schoennagel, and P.B. Moyle. 2006. Managing fire-prone forests in the western United States. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 4:481-487. link

Noss, R.F. 2011. Between the devil and the deep blue sea: Florida’s unenviable position with respect to sea level rise. Climatic Change 107: 1-16.  link

Noss, R.F. 2013. Forgotten Grasslands of the South: Natural History and Conservation. Island Press, Washington, D.C. link

Pimentel, D., W. Dritschilo, J. Krummel, and J. Kutzman. 1975. Energy and land constraints in food-protein production. Science 190:754-761. link

Pimentel, D., H. Acquay, M. Biltonen, P. Rice, M. Silva, J. Nelson, V. Lipner, S. Giordano, A. Horowitz, and M. D’Amore. 1992. Environmental and economic costs of pesticide use. BioScience 42(10):750 – 760. link

Pimentel, D., R. Harman, M. Pacenza, J. Pecarsky, and M. Pimentel. 1994. Natural resources and an optimum human population. Population and Environment 15(5): 347-369. link

Pimentel, D. and P.H. Raven. 2000. Bt corn pollen impacts on nontarget Lepidoptera: assessment of effects in nature. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97(15). 8198-8199. link

Pimentel, D. and M. Pimentel. 2006. Global environmental resources versus world population growth. Ecological Economics 59: 195-198. link

Pimentel, D., J.B. Gardner, A.J. Bonnifield, X. Garcia, J.B. Grufferman, C.M. Horan, E.T. Rochon, J.L. Schlenker, and E.E. Walling. 2009. Energy efficiency and conservation for individual Americans. Environment, Development and Sustainability 11:523-546. link

Pimentel, D. (ed.). 2008. Biofuels, Solar and Wind as Renewable Energy Systems: Benefits and Risks. Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. 504 pp. link

Pimentel, D., M. Whitecraft, Z.R. Scott, L. Zhao, P. Satkiewicz, T.J. Scott, J. Phillips, D. Szimak, G. Singh, D.O. Gonzalez, and T.L. Moe. 2010. Will limited land, water, and energy control human population numbers in the future? Human Ecology, 38(5):599-611. link

Pimentel, D. (ed.). 2011. Biological Invasions: Economic and Environmental Costs of Alien Plant, Animal, and Microbe Species, 2nd Edition. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press. link

Pimentel, D. (ed.). 2012. Global Economic and Environmental Aspects of Biofuels. Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, Florida. link

Pimentel, D. and M. Burgess. 2013. Soil erosion threatens food production. Agriculture 3(3): 443-463. link

Raymond, P. A. and J. J. Cole. 2003. Increase in the export of alkalinity from North America’s largest river. Science 302:88-91. link

Reece, J.S., R.F. Noss, J. Oetting, T. Hoctor, and M. Volk. 2013. A vulnerability assessment of 300 species in Florida: threats from sea level rise, land use, and climate change. PLoS ONE 8(11): e80658. link

Rooney, R.C., S.E. Bayley and D.W. Schindler. 2012. Oil sands mining and reclamation cause massive loss of peatland and stored carbon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109:4933-4937. link

Schade, C. and D. Pimentel. 2010. Population crash: prospects for famine in the twenty-first century. Environment, Development and Sustainability 12:245-262. link

Schindler, D.W. 1999. From acid rain to toxic snow (Volvo Environmental Prize Lecture). Ambio 28: 350-355.

Schindler, D.W. 2001. The cumulative effects of climate warming and other human stresses on Canadian freshwaters in the new millennium. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 58: 18-29. link

Schindler, D.W. 2006. Recent advances in the understanding and management of eutrophication. Limnology and Oceanography 51: 356-363. link

Schindler, D.W. 2012. Sustainable development: what is the role of universities? Powerpoint presentation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta. link

Schindler, D.W. 2013. The ecological rights of humans. The Social Contract 23(3): 25-29. link

Schindler, D.W. and W.F. Donahue. 2006. An impending water crisis in Canada’s western prairie provinces. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 103: 7210-7216. link

Schindler, D.W. and P.G. Lee. 2010. Comprehensive conservation planning to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services in Canadian boreal regions under a warming climate. Biological Conservation143:1571-1586. link

Schindler, D.W. and J.R. Vallentyne. 2008. The Algal Bowl: Overfertilization of the World’s Freshwaters and Estuaries. University of Alberta Press, Edmonton, Alberta. link

Schindler, D., M. Weld and S.H. Hurlbert. 2012. American Association for the Advancement of Silence (on national population policies) muffles ‘obnoxious’ Canadians too. The Social Contract 22(2): 11-25. link

Smail, J.K. 1995. Confronting the 21st century’s hidden crisis: reducing human numbers by 80%. NPG Forum (Negative Population Growth), August. link

Smail, J.K. 1997. Averting the 21st century’s demographic crisis: can human numbers be reduced by 75%? Population and Environment 18(6): 565-580.

Smail, J.K. 1997. Beyond population stabilization: the case for dramatically reducing global human numbers. Politics and the Life Sciences 16(2): 183-192. (Includes 16 “Commentaries” by an international panel of scholars and public policy analysts.) Politics and the Life Sciences 16(2): 193-230.

Smail, J.K. 1997. Population growth seems to affect everything but is seldom held responsible for anything. Politics and the Life Sciences 16(2): 231-236.

Smail, J.K. 2002. Confronting a surfeit of people: reducing global human numbers to sustainable levels (An essay on population two centuries after Malthus). Environment, Development and Sustainability 4(1): 21-50.

Smail, J.K. 2002. Remembering Malthus: a preliminary argument for a significant reduction in global human numbers. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 118(3): 292-297. link

Smail, J.K. 2003. Remembering Malthus II: establishing sustainable population optimum. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 122(3): 287-294. link

Smail, J.K. 2003. Remembering Malthus III: implementing a global population reduction. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 122(3): 295-300. link

Smail, J.K. 2004. Global population reduction: confronting the inevitable. World-Watch 17(5): 58-59. link

Smail, J.K. 2008. Acknowledging and confronting the inevitable: a significant shrinkage in global human numbers and other inconvenient truths (full title as submitted). “Culture Change” website, May 5. link

Swaney, D.P., K. E. Limburg, and K. M. Stainbrook. 2006. Some historical changes in the patterns of population and land use in the Hudson River watershed. American Fisheries Society Symposium 51: 75-112. link

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Weld, M. 2012. Deconstructing the dangerous dogma of denial: the feminist-environmental justice movement and its flight from overpopulation. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics 12: 53-58. link

Weld, M. 2013. The myth of Canada’s underpopulation: lay it to rest. The Social Contract 23(3): 37-38. link

Weld, M. 2013. Feeding the raging monster: how Canada promotes population growth at home and abroad. The Social Contract 23(3): 39-46. link

Weld, M., T. Murray and D. Schindler. 2013. Promoting a big Canada: the scientific arguments. The Social Contract 23(3):4-6. link

Weld, M. 2014. Canada’s immigration policy: Where is it taking us? The need for a cost benefit analysis. Presentation to a POGG (Peace, Order and Good Government) meeting, January 18, 2014, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

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Gail Tverberg’s posts at Our Finite World

Posted on March 27, 2014 by

Gail, like Nicole Foss, writes about how the financial system and (energy) resources are intertwined at www.ourfiniteworld.com

Gail connects the dots of energy, networks, collapse, the economy, supply chains and much more with great charts and graphs, and writes beautifully about very complex topics.  Although her posts can be long, that’s necessary since there are so many issues networked together, each affecting the other areas.  By the end, it’s CHECK-MATE — there’s no way for a techno-optimist to escape the chain of logic.

These columns make the case for a FAST CRASH

Oil Limits and Climate Change – How They Fit Together

Reaching Limits to Growth: What Should our Response Be?

Limits to Growth–At our doorstep, but not recognized

Ten Reasons Intermittent Renewables (Wind and Solar PV) are a Problem

Why a Finite World is a Problem

Why Standard Economic Models Don’t Work–Our Economy is a Network

Oil Limits and the Economy: One Story, Not Two

Reasons for our Energy Predicament – An Overview

Diminishing Returns, Energy Return on Energy Invested, and Collapse

Discontinuity Ahead – Oil Limits will Adversely Affect the Economy

Oil and Gas Limits Underlie Syria’s Conflict

Oil Prices Lead to Hard Financial Limits

The Real Oil Extraction Limit, and How It Affects the Downslope

What’s Ahead? Lower Oil Prices, Despite Higher Extraction Costs

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Export Land Model and Energy Prices

Posted on March 27, 2014 by

What the Export Land Model Means for Energy Prices

David Galland, Managing Director Casey Research June 5th, 2008

To understand the importance of exports when discussing peak oil, ask yourself the question: “What’s more important: the fact that global oil production is falling… or that the oil exporting nations are cutting off their exports?”

While the two questions are clearly linked, it is the nuance of the export question that clearly matters the most. Especially if you live in a country such as the U.S., which currently imports about 70% of its oil.

Which brings us to the Export Land Model (or, ELM as I will refer to it from here). The basic thesis expressed by Jeffre J. Brown  is that to fully appreciate the impact of peak oil, you can’t just look at the production declines, you also have to look at the rate of local consumption [in the country that exports its oil because if local people use a lot of oil, there’s less oil to export].

The ELM graph here looks at both sides of the equation, and the result as it applies to exports

As you can see [this chart of ELM] assumes that after a country’s oil production peaks it declines at a rate of 5% per year at the same time local consumption increases by 2.5%. The dashed red line shows the impact that will have on the ability of the country to export its excess production. Using these assumptions, the ELM shows that exports reach zero in 9 years.

[In the real world the exports may decline much faster than in this example].  The chart below plots the hypothetical ELM against the actual data from the United Kingdom and Indonesia. While the ELM forecast hypothesizes 9 years between peak to the end of exports, Indonesia’s exports ceased 7 years after peak, and the UK’s exports stopped just 6 years after peak.

The important take away here is that the global market is now deprived of these exports; between UK and Indonesia alone, the change over the last decade alone amounts to a swing in the wrong direction of a total of 2 million barrels per day. And those are just two of a number of important countries which have swung from exporters to importers in recent years.

So while people tend to focus on production, they are overlooking the impact on exports forecast by the ELM. China went from a net exporter in 1993 to importing 4 million barrels a day today… with those imports projected to rise another 50% over the next 10 years.

This is what’s creating so much international competition for the remaining supplies of oil.   And if the ELM is right, things are about to get far worse.

The Even Bigger Picture

In my interview, I also asked Jeffrey to share his thoughts on the situation globally. Here’s his response.

“Global production peaked in 2005, and we’re now into the third year of decline. And the critical point, to keep in mind, is our model and case histories show that the decline rate accelerates, year by year. Using the Lower 48 in the United States as an example, you can see the annual declines going 2%, 3%, 5%, 7%, 10%, 15%, 20, on and on. So it’s an accelerating decline rate.

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Oil and Gas Infrastructure are Rusting Apart

Posted on March 27, 2014 by

Oil And Gas “Rust”: An Evil Worse Than Depletion

Offshore Technology Conference May 5, 2008 Houston, Texas by Matthew R. Simmons Chairman Simmons & Company International

Some of the slides are:

If Infrastructure Not Rebuilt It Creates A Double Whammy A worst case Black Swan 

  • Demand surges and creates run on the inventory bank
  • Supply of oil and gas heads south:  Output down 10% – 20% This is “lights out” for our society. Odds of occurrence higher than most houses burning down.
  • Infrastructure collapses, limited use to 50% of possible supply
  • “Lights Out” is not a pretty picture: Without energy, our system shuts down. Water, food, health care, etc., all wind down in a few days. Food scarcity is “Social Chaos 101.” Raw materials, mineral extraction and refining all extremely energy intense

Steel begins to corrode the day it is cast

  • The Oil And Gas “Body” Is All Built Out Of Steel
  • Almost all oil and gas fields reside thousands of feet underground.
  • Almost all “newer” oil fields lie under the sea.
  • Oil has to be extracted, processed, refined and transported over long distances.
  • The entire oil value chain is built of steel.

Rust Never Sleeps

  • Mariners know that rust never sleeps.
  • Scientific American experts knew this in 1896.
  • The oil industry never grasped this profound risk as it built a house for oil out of steel.

Oil And Gas Infrastructure

A Vast Spider Web Of Steel 100,000 individual oil and gas wells in USA alone:

Casing and tubing

  • Wellheads
  • Processing equipment and gathering lines

335,890 miles of pipeline in USA alone

  • Crude oil pipeline
  • Natural gas pipeline
  • Finished product pipeline

Tank Farms: USA has 1,127
Refineries: World has 657 refineries.
Finished petroleum products systems: 164,292 gasoline stations in USA

Declining Oilfields Accelerate Rust

  • As oil declines, brine generally takes its place.
  • Sweet light oil turns into sour heavy oil.
  • Declining oil basins rarely have sub-surface or surface facilities replaced (why bother?)
  • All these factors accelerate the encroaching corrosion and rust

Corrosion Loves Dirt, Brine, Sour Gas And Seawater

Corrosion is the visible scabs and scars of rust.Paint can temporarily conceal corrosion, like a Band-Aid over a cut.But soon, the Band-Aid turns brown. Corrosion under dirt or seawater cannot be seen. Corrosion breeds fast in these environments.

The industry made a risky bet when it threw away wood and turned to steel

From 1860 to 1901 The Oil System Used Barrels And Wagons. Wooden barrels were built to store/transport oil on wagons. The wood would absorb oil and “caulk.”

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Science editor-in-chief Marcia McNutt : Climate Change + other ecosystem damage = extinction

Posted on March 25, 2014 by

Climate Change Impacts

Marcia McNutt is Editor-in-Chief of Science. 2 August 2013. Science: Vol. 341 no. 6145 p. 435

We are not just experiencing increases in greenhouse gas emissions but also eutrophication, pollution of the air and water, massive land conversion, and many other insults, all of which will have interacting and accumulating effects.

The real problem we need to solve in order to truly understand how Earth’s environment may change is that of cumulative impacts.

Although the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (about 55 million years ago) is the time period considered to be a reasonable analog to a higher-CO2 future, the planet was not experiencing these other stressors and climate change simultaneously.

Terrestrial species that survive a climate impact alone may face extinction if reduced to a fraction of their natural range through deforestation and habitat fragmentation. Marine species that are mildly susceptible to ocean acidification may not be able to tolerate this condition plus low oxygen levels.

Even the most optimistic predictions are dire.

Environmental changes brought on by climate changes will be too rapid for many species to adapt to, leading to widespread extinctions.

Even species that might tolerate the new environment could nevertheless decline as the ecosystems on which they depend collapse. The oceans will become more stratified and less productive. If such ecosystem problems come to pass, the changes will affect humans in profound ways. The loss in ocean productivity will be detrimental for the 20% of the population that depends on the seas for nutrition. Crops will fail more regularly, especially on land at lower latitudes where food is in shortest supply. This unfavorable environmental state could last for many thousands of years as geologic processes slowly respond to the imbalances created by the release of the fossil carbon reservoir. The time scale for biodiversity to be restored, with all the benefits that it brings, will be even longer.

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How the sun could end Nuclear Power

Posted on March 25, 2014 by

Flare-up: How the Sun Could Put an End to Nuclear Power

Gar Smith. Spring 2012. Earth Island Journal.

According to NASA, the planet will soon face an outbreak of powerful solar flares capable of collapsing global power grids.

Were this to happen, the world’s nuclear reactors could be left to run wild, overheat, melt, and explode.

A Carrington-sized GMD could damage thousands of extra high voltage (EHV) transformers around the world.

These transformers can weigh up to 300 tons and cost more than $1 million. Power grids cannot operate without them. Because each is custom-built to regional specifications, procuring new EHVs can take up to three years.

Rebuilding a damaged grid could take decades.

That could be the best-case scenario. More worrisome is imagining what would happen to nuclear power plants that are reliant on electrical grids.

A 2011 Oak Ridge National Laboratory report warned of a 33 percent likelihood that a solar flare could lead to “long-term power loss” over a nuclear reactor’s life.

With 440 nuclear power plants in 30 countries, and 250 research reactors, there are nearly 700 potential Fukushimas waiting to be unleashed.

Faced with a grid collapse, nuclear plants must rely on backup power to cool reactor cores and spent-fuel ponds. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires only eight hours of battery power and enough fuel to run emergency generators for a week. Restoring outside power to Fukushima’s damaged reactors was a daunting task even when Japan had a functioning grid to fall back on. If the Sun sends a geomagnetic tsunami sweeping across Earth, it could become impossible to provide any form of traditional power.

The sun’s magnetic cycle peaks every 22 years while sunspot activity crests every 11 years. Both events are set to peak in 2013. Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) trigger geomagnetic disturbances (GMDs) – tides of high-energy particles that can disrupt power lines. Since the 1970s, the array of high-voltage transmission lines spanning the US has grown tenfold. NASA warns these interconnected networks can be energized by a solar flare, causing “an avalanche of blackouts carried across continents [that] … could last for weeks to months.” A National Academy of Sciences report estimates a “century-class” solar storm could cause 20 times the damage as Hurricane Katrina while “full recovery could take four to ten years.

There have been two massive CMEs over the past 153 years. The 1859 “Carrington Event” irradiated Earth for nine days, causing the Northern Lights to erupt over Hawai’i. On May 14, 1921, a GMD lit up northern skies as far south as Puerto Rico. Both flares disrupted telegraph communication around the world.

But nineteenth- and twentieth-century telegraph systems were more resilient than today’s electronics. Solar flares can bake the circuitry that controls aircraft, banking, GPS, radio, TV broadcasts, iPods, and the Internet. As NASA solar physicist Lika Guhathakurta put it: “A similar storm today might knock us for a loop.

On March 13, 1989, a 90-second solar blast slapped HydroQuebec’s transmission system and left six million Canadians without electricity for nine hours. The storm cooked transformers in Great Britain and triggered 200 “anomalies” at oil-, coal-, and nuclear-fueled facilities across the US.

Gar Smith is editor emeritus of Earth Island Journal.

Here is another similar article:
Solar storm could leave Britain without power ‘for months’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10103492/Solar-storm-could-leave-Britain-without-power-for-months.html

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Mercury pollution

Posted on March 25, 2014 by

August 9, 2014. Missing mercury pollution is enough for mass poisoning. NewScientist.

New data suggests that we still don’t know where our emissions of toxic mercury end up. Somewhere out there are tens of thousands of tons of missing mercury. Mercury is released by several industries and accumulates as methyl mercury in aquatic organisms. It causes brain damage and birth deformities.

Carl Lamborg of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts has found that, since industrialization, mercury levels near the ocean surface have tripled in many places (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature13563). The highest rates are in cold waters around Iceland and Antarctica, where they are enough to damage marine life and threaten humans.

But the levels are much lower than expected, Lamborg says, given known emissions from coal burning, cement production, waste incineration and small-scale gold mining. He estimates the oceans contain between 60,000 and 80,000 tons of mercury, less than a quarter of the 350,000 tonnes expected (Environmental Science & Technology, doi.org/ckm949).

Where is the rest? Small-scale gold mining may be a big source, so the lost mercury could be in soils near mines, Lamborg says. Alternatively, the lost mercury could be in sediments of estuaries and coastal waters, particularly in Asia. Last month, Helen Amos of Harvard University estimated that up to 90 per cent of the mercury flowing down rivers from mining areas ends up in these sediments (Environmental Science & Technology, doi.org/t2h). If those sediments get stirred up, local mercury levels could reach those seen at Minamata, which affected thousands of people.

Lizzie Wade.  27 Sep 2013. Mercury Pollution Gold’s Dark Side.  Small-scale artisanal gold mining has become the world’s leading source of mercury pollution, poisoning air, rivers, and people.  Science: Vol. 341 no. 6153 pp. 1448-9

Endowed with a unique ability to extract gold from low-grade ore, mercury remains the method of choice for artisanal gold miners around the world. Often very poor, these miners work alone or in small groups, using mercury to separate and bind flecks of gold from soupy slurries of water and sediment. They are outlaws in many countries, eking out a living on the margins of the formal economy.

This diffuse industry is now the world’s largest mercury polluter, pumping more mercury into the environment than all the world’s coal-fired power plants combined. The mining operations typically leave a trail of mercury waste, putting as many as 100 million people at risk of poisoning.

The vast quantities of mercury already dumped by artisanal mining will persist in ecosystems for hundreds of years.

With gold prices soaring and as many as 15 million miners were using 1600 metric tons of the mercury in 2012 alone.

It is “an extremely daunting problem,” says Luis Fernandez, an ecologist and expert in artisanal gold mining at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California. And the stakes are high: “Once areas are contaminated, they are contaminated for a long time.”

The process creates ample opportunity for pollution—and exposure. Miners simply dump the mercury-infused slurry, which contaminates rivers. Bacteria in the sediments help transform the inorganic mercury to organic methylmercury, which can be absorbed by phytoplankton and accumulate in fish and other creatures higher on the food chain. People who eat contaminated fish are at risk of neurological damage, autoimmune disease, and devastating birth defects. In a new study, Fernandez found that people in the Peruvian state of Madre de Dios, home to much of the country’s artisanal gold mining, have mercury levels in hair averaging 3 parts per million, triple the maximum limit recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “For the most part, these are people who are not miners. These are people who eat fish,” Fernandez says. Levels are even higher—more than 5 ppm—in the state’s indigenous communities, which rely on local fish for protein.

In mining towns like La Rinconada, the threat is more direct: People are exposed every time they take a breath. As gold shops in the center of town burn the mercury-gold amalgams, mercury vapor wafts into crowded neighborhoods. “In effect, some of these little towns have the equivalent of four, five, 10, 20, coal-fired power plants in the center of them,” Fernandez says. Meanwhile, mercury lifted into the upper atmosphere can travel vast distances before falling back to Earth and making its way into the global food web.

Documenting exactly how much mercury miners are using—and exactly how it is affecting people—has been a challenge. Artisanal gold mining often takes place in remote areas, and miners can be wary of scientists, whose findings could threaten their livelihoods. “We’ve been chased out of towns when we’ve tried to do surveys or a give a talk,” Fernandez says. Still, researchers are making progress. The United Nations more than doubled its estimate of mercury emissions from artisanal mining between 2008 and 2013, “mostly due to better reporting,” says Kevin Telmer, executive director of the Artisanal Gold Council in Victoria, Canada, which works to reduce mercury use in small-scale mining.

The United Nations may not have the whole picture, however. “The more you look, the more you find,” says NRDC’s Keane. A 2011 study of the air quality in and around La Rinconada’s some 250 gold shops, for instance, concluded that they could be emitting 20 metric tons of mercury per year. That’s nearly one-third of Peru’s reported annual emissions, suggesting that the official tally is a severe underestimate.

Simply banning artisanal mining—or mercury—isn’t a realistic option, specialists have concluded. “Making [artisanal mining] illegal hasn’t worked,” Keane says. It only demonizes miners and drives their activity further underground, cutting off the very resources they need to improve their practices: education, training, and credit. “You cannot deal with someone who officially doesn’t exist,” says Jacopo Seccatore, a doctoral student in mining engineering at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.

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