Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 05, 2012, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A10 EDITORIALS WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, TUESDAY, JUNE 05, 2012 Freedom of Trade Liberty of Religion Equality of Civil Rights A 10 COMMENT EDITOR: Gerald Flood 697- 7269 gerald. flood@ freepress. mb. ca winnipegfreepress. com EDITORIAL T HE mixed verdicts in the trial of deposed Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and his cronies have satisfied no one, including many thousands of people who have again taken to the streets to protest what they believe was a failure of justice. Critics of the life sentences received by Mubarak and his security chief, Habib el- Adly, say they got off lightly and should have been put to death, while some observers claim they should never have been convicted because there was no evidence against them. They say Mubarak was convicted only on the principle of political responsibility, which can be a slippery slope if applied broadly. The doctrine of command responsibility is entrenched in international law, but usually only in cases of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Mubarak's two sons were both acquitted of corruption charges, as was Mubarak himself. In addition, seven other defendants, including the leaders of Egypt's notorious security services, were all acquitted in the deaths of nearly 900 people during the riots in Tahrir Square last year. The toll doesn't include thousands who were beaten or tortured. The Egyptian legal system in this important test certainly didn't operate well, but perhaps as well as could be expected in a country where corruption remains a way of life. The final verdicts were foreshadowed following the testimony of the very first prosecution witness, a police general, who testified police were not ordered to fire on protesters. The prosecution case was that Mubarak and his security advisors told police to use lethal force to crush the uprising. Subsequent witnesses also vacillated or changed their stories, and video of the riots didn't provide irrefutable evidence, either, other than the riots escalated and violence ensued on both sides. Without a clear nexus between the deaths and orders from higher authorities, the judge decided to acquit senior officials. Evidence against police on the street was also weak. There was no evidence, at least none presented during the trial, that Mubarak and El- Adly had directly ordered the use of lethal force, which explains why they did not get the death penalty. The judge ruled Mubarak was an " accessory to murder" because he didn't interfere to stop the killing of protesters. No evidence was presented on the question of brutality over the course of his 30- year reign. Mubarak and el- Adly are both appealing because of what they say was the lack of direct evidence linking them to the slaughter. Indeed, if protesters in Canada were killed, say during the Montreal student riots, would it be reasonable to charge the premier with murder? The suspicion, of course, is that Mubarak was fully aware of a plan to use violent force against protesters - in a dictatorship, subordinates aren't known for taking the initiative - but a sentence of death based on a balance of probabilities would also have been condemned as a gross injustice. Still, Mubarak and his security chief were in charge and they were responsible for ensuring the violence was contained. They had many opportunities over many weeks to exert their authority, yet they failed in this prime responsibility. For this reason, they deserve to be held accountable. Mubarak was not the worst of the world's dictators and he made significant contributions to maintaining peace in the region, and to supporting American efforts to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in the first Gulf War. Egyptians should be satisfied Mubarak was held accountable, but there are also grounds for concern the new government did not exert itself in uncovering more evidence against the country's leading figures, a failure that leaves a hole in the record, and in the hearts of the victims. W ITH global population having recently reached the seven- billion mark, greater attention is being focused on how we can feed a world in which many people are already starving. Policy- makers who rightfully see this as a problem that can be solved through scientific discovery have devoted much of their attention over the past century to finding new and better ways to increase crop production. While the success of agricultural researchers has been remarkable - even commendable - we need to focus our attention on one area of the food production chain that has been ignored, perhaps to our peril. What do we do with the food once it's been produced? While public and private resources have been poured into increasing production, very little work and attention has focused on adequately addressing the safe storage of food. Because of this, many of the breakthroughs in food production are literally being wasted because food that should be filling hungry mouths is often spoiled before it can be consumed. The disparity between the developed and developing world on the issue of safe and efficient storage is stark. While post- harvest losses in the developed world can be as low as one per cent, losses can be as high as 50 per cent in the developing world. In short, where the need for food is greatest and where population is increasing more rapidly than in the developed world, crop loss is most prevalent. Consider, for a moment, the implication of this spoilage. Assuming that two people are fed annually for every one tonne of grain, a country with a population of 50 million people that loses half of its production to spoilage would have to double its crop production from 50 million to 100 million tonnes to feed 100 million people. With no such loss, that country could feed 100 million people without any increase in production. Increased production has an economic and environmental impact that needs to be considered as we introduce public policy that is more weighted to production over safe storage. Crops require use of expensive and valuable resources such as seed, fertilizers, water and fuel, in addition to putting strains on arable land supplies. If policy- makers focused on a strategy that dramatically reduced crop damage to only two per cent, that same 25 million people could be fed with minimal crop- production increases. Achieving this objective requires a new focus in research as well as a shift in global public policy. New research in crop storage needs to be funded, conducted, published and made available to set future policy direction. The topics would include new attention on the impact of temperature, moisture and insects on grain spoilage. New technologies, such as digital- image processing and near- infrared hyperspectral imaging, should be evaluated for their effectiveness in monitoring grain quality. Along with this new body of research, proper training and guidelines based on these discoveries must be established and distributed to farmers and grain storage managers. Policymakers must work with universities to establish extension programs. Finally, universities should develop programs focused on food preservation. We can no longer view the storage of food as yet another issue for farmers to manage on their own with little or no support. These commodities must be viewed as public assets that address one of the most basic human needs. Historically, science has provided many of the answers to the puzzle of food production and population increases that economist and population theorist Thomas Malthus identified centuries ago. However, at a time when we have more people in the world to feed than ever before, we need to find new, more creative, more environmentally conscious and less expensive ways to achieve the same result. The question is, then, how do we get the food we produce to those who need it most? Digvir S. Jayas is vice- president research and international at the University of Manitoba and a distinguished professor in biosystems engineering who has published 300 articles on topics related to grain drying, handling and storing. A MERICA'S " unconventional" gas boom continues to amaze. Between 2005 and 2010 the country's shale- gas industry, which produces natural gas from shale rock by bombarding it with water and chemicals in a technique known as hydraulic fracturing or " fracking" grew by 45 per cent a year. As a proportion of America's overall gas production, shale gas has increased from four per cent in 2005 to 24 per cent today. America produces more gas than it knows what to do with. Its storage facilities are rapidly filling, and its gas price - because prices for gas, unlike oil, are set regionally - has collapsed. Last month, it dipped below $ 2 per million British thermal units, less than a sixth of the pre- boom price and too low for producers to break even. Those are problems most European and Asian countries, which respectively pay roughly four and six times more for their gas, would relish. America's gas boom confers a huge economic advantage. It has created hundreds of thousands of jobs, directly and indirectly, and it has rejuvenated several industries, including petrochemicals, where ethane produced from natural gas is a raw material. The gas price is likely to rise in the next few years because of increasing demand. Peter Voser, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, an oil firm with big shale- gas investments, expects it to double by 2015. Yet it will remain below European and Asian prices, so the industry should still grow. America is estimated to have enough gas to sustain its current production rate for more than a century. This is astonishing. Barely five years ago America was expected to be a big gas importer. Between 2000 and 2010 it built infrastructure to " regasify" more than 100 billion cubic metres of imported liquefied natural gas. In 2011, however, American LNG imports were less than 20 bcm. Efforts are underway to convert idle regasification terminals into liquefaction facilities in order to export LNG. Plans for a terminal in Sabine Pass, La., are expected to be approved in June. The shock waves of America's gas boom are being felt elsewhere. Development of Russia's vast Shtokman gasfield in the Barents Sea, a $ 40- billion project which was intended to supply America with LNG, has stalled. Qatari LNG, once earmarked for America, is going to energy- starved Japan. A bigger change is expected, however, with large- scale shale- gas production possible in Argentina, Australia, China and several European countries including Poland and Ukraine. Last year, the International Energy Agency released a boosterish report titled Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas ? On May 29 it released a follow- up, from which it dropped the question mark. It foresees a tripling in the supply of unconventional gas between 2010 and 2035, leading to a slower price rise than would otherwise be expected. It expects this to boost global demand by more than 50 per cent. Not everyone is so bullish. America's shale- gas boom has been fueled by a coincidence of factors: " open access" pipeline regulation, which inspired wildcat exploration, and abundant drill- rigs and other infrastructure, as well as strong property rights, whereby landowners own the rights to minerals beneath their holdings. Few of these conditions exist elsewhere. Europe has a good pipeline network, which in theory is open to all, but the pipes get tied up years in advance. European landowners typically do not own the minerals under their land, so they have little incentive to encourage exploration. Also Europe is crowded, so its NIMBYs are noisy. China has a different sort of problem: a shortage of water, of which millions of gallons can be required to frack a single well. The Argentine government's recent decision to grab control of the country's largest oil firm, YPF, will scare off the foreign investment its shale industry needs. Such hurdles will make the pace, and perhaps the scale, of America's boom tough to equal, and even a big increase in supply might not bring down the European gas price much. Unlike the price in America, it is tied to the price of oil, thanks to long- term Russian and Norwegian export contracts. Shale- gas producers also face opposition from greens, who object to the industry's heavy water usage and a small risk that fracking could lead to contamination of aquifers and even to earthquakes. There is also a risk that large amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, could escape during shale- gas exploration and production. The IEA estimates shale- gas production emits 3.5 per cent more than conventional gas, and 12 per cent more when it involves venting excess gas. France and Bulgaria have banned fracking, and American and Australian anti- frackers are also rallying. The greens have a case, but they exaggerate it. So long as well shafts are properly sealed, there is hardly any risk that fracking will poison groundwater. By eliminating venting, methane emissions can be kept to an acceptable minimum. And the risk of earthquakes, which has long been present in conventional oil- and- gas extraction, is modest and mitigated by monitoring. The IEA says such precautions would add seven per cent to the cost of a shale- gas well, a small price for a healthy industry. They would not address the big problem with shale gas and all fossil fuels, however, which is the global warming they cause. Without a serious effort to boost renewable energy and other low- carbon technologies, the IEA envisages warming of more than 3.5 degrees Celsius. That could be unaffordable. Mubarak trial's big hole DIGVIR S. JAYAS Reap as ye sow - then store it safely Shale gas booming at astonishing pace The Economist A_ 10_ Jun- 05- 12_ FP_ 01. indd A10 6/ 4/ 12 9: 27: 03 PM ;