Your Shrimp Cocktail Is Ruining the Planet
A biologist has calculated that the tiny little shrimp maybe the most costly animal you can eat when measured in terms of its negative impact on the environment. According to a new paper from J. Boone Kaufman, of Oregon State University, one pound of frozen shrimp adds one ton of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere — more than 10 times that produced by the equivalent amount of beef raised on cleared rainforest land.
It seems that most of the world's farmed shrimp is produced on coastal farms in Southeast Asia that were created by destroying mangrove forests. In addition to the loss of the trees — which are particularly great at eating carbon dioxide and protect the fragile coastlines — the farms are usually abandoned with 10 years, due to "disease, soil acidification and contamination" and leave the land unusable for another 40 years. So if you have a problem with factory farming of pigs and cows, they apparently have nothing on the carbon footprint of the humble shrimp. Just one more awful thing to think about the next time you order the surf-and-turf.
The self-proclaimed OECD thinks austerity begins at the downend.
As it looks a lot of money comes from oil taxes but what will happen when the oil wells run dry? Will the top IMF executives share their savings with the low-income end of the population? One for sure, they do not really produce these funds or work for them, they only administrate them.
When the oil reserves are exhausted, they are exhausted.
Prices have risen from 1995 to 2012: 20 dollar to 100 dollar/barrel.
It is ridiciuluous on the one side poor south east Asians raise shrimps on farms so the top executives can eat many shrimps inside luxury hotels, one ton Co2 per kilogram shrimps is generated. On the other end, The vatican + The Pope are ineffective, wasting millions of funds do nothing visible no miracels ever happened. If there are problems they are hushed up people are told to shut up.
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Only about a third of the cost of petrol at the pumps actually represents the cost of the raw material from which it is made - oil
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Business of Energy
Energy uncovered
Competition drives up energy cost
We all know petrol costs a lot, but how many of us actually know why, and who profits from selling the stuff?
The cost of petrol and diesel can actually be broken down fairly precisely, and it's immediately obvious who the primary beneficiary is: the government.
Well over half, in fact about 60%, of the £1.34 odd we pay for a litre of unleaded is fuel duty and VAT.
Less than 5% goes to the petrol retailer, in some cases more like 1%, which helps in part to explain why so many are struggling despite recent rises in fuel costs.
Next to tax, the single biggest component in the price of petrol is... well, the petrol itself, which accounts for about 30% of the overall cost.
This is what the retailers actually pay for the petrol that comes out of the pumps. This can then be broken down into the cost of oil - the basic material from which petrol is derived - and the cost of refining it into something that powers your car rather than clogs it up.
This refining process actually accounts for very little of the average litre of petrol, so we are left with the cost of oil, which is where things start to get a bit tricky.
Big variation
The price of a barrel of oil on the open market is well documented (currently it's about $107 for a barrel of Brent crude), but how this figure is broken down into its component parts is much harder to determine.
Cynics would say this is because vested interests within the oil industry don't want us to know. But delving just a little into the actual cost of producing oil, rather than its price, suggests this view may be a little simplistic.
One of the main reasons for the lack of transparency is simply that there is no standard barrel of oil - the cost of producing one varies massively depending on which of the many thousand oil rigs around the world it comes from.
Measured by environmental impact, a humble shrimp cocktail could be the most costly part of a typical restaurant meal, scientists said Friday.
If the seafood is produced on a typical Asian fish farm, a 100-gram (3.5 ounce) serving "has an ecosystem carbon footprint of an astounding 198 kilograms (436 pounds) of CO2," biologist J. Boone Kauffman said.
A one-pound (454-gram) bag of frozen shrimp produces one ton of carbon dioxide, said Kauffman, who is based at Oregon State University and conducts research in Indonesia.
He told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that he developed the comparison to help the public understand the environmental impact of land use decisions.
Kauffman said 50 to 60 percent of shrimp farms are located in tidal zones in Asian countries, mostly on cleared mangrove forests.
"The carbon footprint of the shrimp from this land use is about 10-fold greater than the land use carbon footprint of an equivalent amount of beef produced from a pasture formed from a tropical rainforest," wrote Kauffman in a paper released to AFP, not including emissions from farm development, feeds, supplements, processing, storing and shipping.
The farms are inefficient, producing just one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of shrimp for 13.4 square kilometers (five square miles) of mangrove, while the ponds created are abandoned in just three to nine years because disease, soil acidification and contamination destroy them, he wrote.
After abandonment, the soil takes 35 to 40 years to recover, he said.
Emily Pidgeon of Conservation International said intact mangrove forests are of value in protecting the coastal ecosystems and communities against storms and tsunamis, such as the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 that killed some 230,000 people (Fukushima tsunami killed about 27000 japanese people).
The problem, she said, is the value of intact mangroves is hard to measure, and most of the shrimp farms are in impoverished areas that cannot easily afford conservation.
"It's difficult to find the financing to do it, or the political will," she said, adding Kauffman's carbon measurements provide another argument in favor of protection.
The catchy shrimp cocktail estimate is part of the relatively new field in science and economics called ecosystem services, which uses models to measure the value to human communities, in economic terms, of forests, grassland, waterways and even the air.
"To present how deforestation and land cover change contribute to global climate change in a comprehensible manner, we change the scale of greenhouse gas emissions from global to personal scales," wrote Kauffman.
For example, a bog standard barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia costs about $2-$3 to extract from the ground, whereas a barrel taken from tar sands in Alberta can cost more than $60.
But this in no way represents the cost to oil companies of producing the black stuff.
First they have to find it, which actually accounts for remarkably little of their overall expenditure on production, despite the fact they are having to look further and wider, given dwindling supplies from traditional sources.
For example, setting up a deep water exploration well can cost between $100m and $200m, and only has a one in four chance of success on average, according to Robert Plummer, senior analyst at global energy research group Wood Mackenzie.
Maintaining oil rigs is an expensive business
Then they have to lease the land on which they want to drill, obtain the rights to do so, appraise the reserves they are tapping into, lease the rig and put in place the pipelines and shipping contracts needed to transport the oil for refining.
And this is a lengthy process - typically about seven years from discovery to production.
Roughly, this accounts for about 20% of the cost of a barrel of oil, but it's getting ever more expensive as oil runs out and companies are forced to drill deeper in more remote places.
Then of course they have to operate the rigs, which involves maintaining the heavy equipment needed to pump the oil, monitoring and managing reserves, redrilling blocked wells and paying for supplies for crews, who need to be compensated handsomely for the risky work they undertake. This accounts for about 10% of the cost of oil.
This gets us roughly to what a barrel of oil costs to get out of the ground. These figures are based on a proxy cost of oil, which actually includes a not-insignificant weighting for gas. Also bear in mind that these percentages are based on figures for 2011, and they do vary from year to year (see chart below).
Taxing profits
But this is not the cost of oil, for there are two major components missing - tax and the profit the oil companies themselves make. These will account for almost two-thirds of the overall cost of oil in 2011, according to Wood Mackenzie's figures, although it's clear who the biggest recipients are. You guessed it: governments.
Tax on oil is a complicated business - some is charged as a percentage of revenue, while export duties can be onerous - but a good chunk of government revenue comes from taxing the profits of oil companies.
Marginal tax rates on profits in the UK are 62%, more than 80% in Norway and about 90% in some countries. And when profits rise, taxes rise, not just because they are based on a percentage of profits, but also because governments can raise the actual rate of tax itself.
However, even with such high rates of tax, this year oil companies are looking at margins of about 25% of the total cost of oil, which is pretty spectacular by most industries' standards, although this figure does not include financing costs. UK gas and electricity companies, for example, work to margins of about 9%, according to the regulator Ofgem.
But again, these margins vary widely from year to year. For example, in 2009, margins were about 8%, while in 1998, oil companies made no profit at all.
In fact, companies use bumper years to insulate themselves against leaner years, Mr Plummer says.
Finally, then, we have a rough idea of the how the cost of oil breaks down.
Speculation
The margins that oil companies make depend largely on the actual price of oil on the open market.
The difference between the cost of oil and the price of it largely comes down to supply and demand, and speculation by investors. When supply is constrained, such as Libya ceasing production of its high quality oil earlier this year, the price is forced up.
Equally, when demand falls away, for example during the recession that hit most developed economies in 2008, the price falls. More importantly, it is the expectation of future supply and demand that drives the price.
Finally there is the impact of speculators, which is almost impossible to quantify, but many organisations, the motoring group AA among them, believe investors play an increasingly significant role in driving the oil price.
But whether it's speculators, investors, governments or oil companies benefiting from high costs of petrol and oil, one thing is certain - consumers invariably end up losing out.
Austerity begins with banning unethical foods + distributing pictures illustrating life&work of poor south-east Asian people + Nigerian people living from one dollar/day.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Euro zone finance ministers sealed a 130-billion-euro ($172 billion) bailout for Greece on Tuesday to avert a chaotic default next month after forcing Athens to commit to unpopular cuts and private bondholders to accept deeper losses.
The agreement was hailed as a step forward for Greece, but doubts immediately emerged as to whether it would do much more than deal with its most pressing debt problems.
Greece will need more help if it is to bring its debts down to the level envisaged in the bailout and will remain "accident prone" in coming years, according to a deeply pessimistic report by international experts obtained by Reuters.
After 13 hours of talks, ministers finalized measures to cut Greece's debt to 120.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, a fraction above the target, to secure its second rescue in less than two years and meet a bond repayment in March.
By agreeing that the European Central Bank would distribute its profits from bond buying and private bondholders would take more losses, the ministers reduced Greece's debt to a point that should secure funding from the International Monetary Fund and help shore up the 17-country currency bloc.
While the deal will buy time for the Euro zone until it puts new crisis measures in place over the coming months, it means Greece will struggle for years without economic growth.
The austerity measures wrought from Greece are widely disliked among the population and will put pressure on its politicians who must contest an election in April.
Further street unrest could test politicians' commitment to cuts in wages, pensions and jobs. Greece's two biggest labor unions called a protest in Athens on Wednesday.
An opinion poll taken just before the Brussels deal showed that support for the two Greek parties backing the rescue package had fallen to an all-time low while leftist, anti-bailout parties showed gains.
Anastasis Chrisopoulos, a 31-year-old Athens taxi driver, saw no reason to cheer the deal.
"So what?" he asked. "Things will only get worse. We have reached a point where we're trying to figure out how to survive just the next day, let alone the next 10 days, the next month, the next year."
Greek conservative leader Antonis Samaras, a strong contender to become next prime minister, said the rescue package's debt-reduction targets can only be met through economic growth.
"Without the rebound and growth of the economy ... not even the immediate fiscal targets can be met, nor can the debt become sustainable in the long-term," he said during a visit to Cyprus.
Parliaments in three countries that have been most critical of Greece's second bailout - Germany, the Netherlands and Finland - must now approve the package. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who caused an outcry by suggesting that Greece was a "bottomless pit," said he was confident it would be passed.
"We have reached a far-reaching agreement on Greece's new program and private sector involvement that would lead to a significant debt reduction for Greece ... to secure Greece's future in the euro area," Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the Eurogroup of finance ministers, told a news conference.
Shares slipped from seven-month highs in Europe. while Italian and Spanish government bond yields fell.
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Euro zone crisis in graphics http://r.reuters.com/hyb65p
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Some economists say there are still questions over whether Greece can pay off even a reduced debt burden, suggesting the deal may only delay a deeper default by a few months.
Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg said: "What's been done is a meaningful step forward. Of course, the Greeks remain stuck in their tragedy; this is a new act in a long drama.
"I don't think we should consider that they are cleared of any problems, but I do think we've reduced the Greek problem to just a Greek problem. It is no longer a threat to the recovery in all of Europe, and it is another step forward."
A return to economic growth in Greece could take as much as a decade, a prospect that brought thousands onto the streets of Athens to protest on Sunday. The cuts will deepen a recession already in its fifth year, hurting government revenues.
"We sowed the wind, now we reap the whirlwind," said Vassilis Korkidis, head of the Greek Commerce Confederation. "The new bailout is selling us time and hope at a very high price, while it doggedly continues to impose harsh austerity measures that keep us in a long and deep recession."
EXTRA RELIEF
A report prepared by experts from the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund said Greece would need extra relief to cut its debts near to the official debt target given the worsening state of its economy.
If Athens did not follow through on economic reforms and savings to make its economy more competitive, its debt could hit 160 percent by 2020, said the report.
"Given the risks, the Greek program may thus remain accident-prone, with questions about sustainability hanging over it," the nine-page confidential report said.
The deal envisages a beefed up monitoring of Greece's implementation of the reforms - a move that could bolster accusations among some Greeks of interference in domestic affairs but which some critics say is essential.
Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager, one of the most strident critics of Greece, told Dutch news agency ANP that he had bargained hard for the permanent monitoring mission.
"This program is not something to cheer about," he said.
BOND SWAP
The accord will enable Athens to launch a bond swap with private investors to help put it on a more stable financial footing and keep it inside the euro zone.
About 100 billion euros of debt will be written off as banks and insurers swap bonds they hold for longer-dated securities that pay a lower coupon.
Private sector holders of Greek debt will take losses of 53.5 percent on the nominal value of their bonds. They had agreed to a 50 percent nominal writedown, which equated to around a 70 percent loss on the net present value of the debt.
Juncker said he expected a high participation rate in the deal, a view echoed by the German banking association.
Greece said it would pass legislation that would allow it to enforce losses on bondholders who will not take part.
Euro zone central banks will also play their part in reducing the debt.
A Eurogroup statement said the ECB would pass up profits it made from buying Greek bonds over the past two years to national central banks for their governments to pass on to Athens "to further improve the sustainability of Greece's public debt."
The ECB has spent about 38 billion euros on Greek government debt that is now worth about 50 billion euros.
The private creditor bond exchange is expected to launch on March 8 and complete three days later, Athens said on Saturday. That means a 14.5-billion-euro bond repayment due on March 20 would be restructured, allowing Greece to avoid default.
The vast majority of the funds in the 130-billion-euro program will be used to finance the bond swap and ensure Greece's banking system remains stable; some 30 billion euros will go to "sweeteners" to get the private sector to sign up to the swap, 23 billion will go to recapitalize Greek banks.
A further 35 billion or so will allow Greece to finance the buying back of the bonds. Next to nothing will go directly to help the Greek economy.
($1 = 0.7538 euros)
(Additional reporting by Luke Baker, Julien Toyer, Robin Emmott in Brussels, Daniel Flynn in Paris, Terri Kinnunen in Helsinki, Sarah Marsh in Berlin, Harry Papachristou in Athens, Michele Kambas in Nicosia; Writing by Mike Peacock and Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Giles Elgood)
Who is saying you must eat these shrimps? Who is saying you must use a 5-stars luxury hotel + have 5 Mercedes? Where it would be enough if you can make it just to frequent one hotel any kind of hotel for a few days/year.
Otherwise, you are recklessly ruining the planet .
When there is no more oil the people in south east Asia will stop growing shrimps for you and life conditions for your kind won't be sustainable anymore. People will remember you and refer to you as kind of an eco-criminal. This is the feeling you should get if you eat too many shrimps + 2 bottles champagne + 3000$/day hotel suite + 5 Mercedes Benz 600XL + Swiss watch made from platinium, coated with gold and encrusted with diamonds, not really telling the time any better than a $50 Casio digital watch.
MEGAUPLOAD pirate syndicate - even more than just 5 Mercedes. They had about 20 of them, funded by poor kids downloading illegal movie copies via torrent.
IMF director - some questions
-People including public servants should be fired as austerity measure. What will happen to them where can they get their next meal from + who will pay for it? Or just delegate the problem to guess what- different funds! Trade the fundies from one funds administration to another in the end none is responsible for them.
Is it really a solution to cut jobs, to destroy jobs and to cut costs or won't it rather slow down the economy?
-Do you eat many shrimps have you ever seen photos from south east Asia where they come from?
-Oil prices have risen from $20 to $100 since 1995 I don't think they will revert again they will rise more and more until nothing is left. We still have cars with 4 seats most of the time only one person driving. Don't you think that's criminal waste and isn't it very simple maths? The oil would last 3 times longer if 4 seats cars are banned.
By the way I saw some top class hotels myself from the inside, used for business conferences/events. But renting a suite for $3000/day just for personal use + having a gold and diamonds encrusted platinium watch? Totally useless or what do you think, austerity begins when no IMF members are allowed anymore to spend more than $500 on watches and no more than 1 Mercedes each.
I really wonder there is so much wealth coming from the oil exploitation and there are still problems to distribute the funds. When there is no more oil we also will learn to live from one dollar/day, and how to grow shrimps.
-Do you think ALDI, LIDL and the like are eco-crime like syndicates destroying market diversity + supporting slave labour + giving a sh*t about too much sugar and chemical additives, or do you think they are beneficiary towards the low-income groups of the population? Do you ever shop there yourself (for the records, myself I don't go there at all).
