A new action video game Call of Duty: Black Ops II is now on the market. While I don’t play such games myself, the premise is interesting: A new cold war has begun between the U.S. and China because China has banned exports of rare earth minerals. We get nearly all of our rare earth minerals from China. This premise and its implications are discussed in a Washington Times editorial by Hal Quinn, president of the National Mining Association, and by Michael Silver is president of American Elements, a manufacturer of engineered and advanced materials. (See chart of all our imported minerals at the bottom of this post.)

Within the editorial Quinn and Silver lament the loss of investment in U.S. mineral development which they say is due to “to an outdated, muddled permitting process, which can require a staggering seven to 10 years for approval of just one mine. This is precious time that costs our nation valuable jobs and discourages companies from investing here.” I discuss this state of affairs in my post: Mining and the bureaucracy.

In my post China Controls Rare Earth Elements Supply I note that the rare earth elements are used every day in things such as liquid-crystal displays on computer monitors and televisions, fiber optic cables, magnets, glass polishing, DVD and USB drives in the computer, catalytic converters, and petroleum cracking catalysts, batteries (the Prius uses 10 pounds of lanthanum), fluorescent lights, missiles, jet engines, and satellites. In other words, these elements are critical to our high-technology world.

In my post Rare Earths Resources in the US I note that only one mine, Mountain Pass, California, is currently producing rare earth minerals in the U.S. although there are other potential sources in the U.S. That post also links to a U.S. Geological Survey report “The Principal Rare Earth Elements Deposits of the United States—A Summary of Domestic Deposits and a Global Perspective.”

To get some perspective on the state of our mineral commodities, see the U.S. Geological Survey Report: “Mineral Commodity Summaries, 2012.” The chart below showing our mineral imports is a slightly modified version of the chart that appears on page 6 of the USGS report.

Maybe the premise of the video game is not so far fetched.

Climate modelers are having a problem. The global temperature is not cooperating with the way the modelers say it should if their theories are correct. We learned of their consternation from the “Climategate” emails: Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research said, “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

Now the modelers claim that China has saved the day by burning coal. A paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (written, by the way, by two geographers and two economists) claim that increased coal burning in China has put enough sulfur dioxide (SO₂) in the air to block the alleged warming effect of carbon dioxide.

The logical, but perhaps absurd, conclusion of this claim is that we should abandon wind turbines and solar arrays, to burn much more coal.

If we stipulate that air quality near Chinese coal-burning power plants is foul, the question remains: is this a local effect or is it world-wide, enough to affect global temperature? Well, apparently the effect is not world-wide. The EPA measures air quality and the graph below shows that in the U.S., sulfur dioxide content of the air has been steadily decreasing. (Source )

This “China syndrome” seems to be another attempt to explain away the failings of climate modeling and the divergence between model predictions and real-world observations. Perhaps the IPCC had it right when they said in their Third Assessment Report: “In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the prediction of a specific future climate state is not possible.”

UPDATE: New NASA paper says volcanoes primarily responsible for increased SO2:

Recently, the trend, based on ground-based lidar measurements, has been tentatively attributed to an increase of SO(2) entering the stratosphere associated with coal burning in Southeast Asia. However, we demonstrate with these satellite measurements that the observed trend is mainly driven by a series of moderate but increasingly intense volcanic eruptions primarily at tropical latitudes.

See also:

A Basic Error in Climate Models

Climate Model Projections vs Real World Observations

How Mother Nature Fools Climate Scientists

Your Carbon Footprint doesn’t Matter

A Modest Proposal: Triple Your Carbon Footprint

From the Center for Consumer Freedom is this report:

Today, the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) released new lab results showing that a number of major retailers’ reusable shopping bags contained excessive levels of lead. Of the 44 organizations whose bags were tested, 16 are selling or distributing reusable bags containing lead in amounts greater than 100 ppm (parts per million), which is where many states set the limit for heavy metals in packaging.

 National chains such as CVS, Safeway, Bloom, and Walgreens were among those with high levels of lead found in their re-usable bags. CVS and Safeway led the pack with 697 and 672 ppm respectively; both were nearly seven times the 100 ppm limit. To date, CVS is the only store that tested above 100 ppm to have recalled their bags.

 ”Across the country legislators are proposing bills to ban or tax paper and plastic bags, but the unintended consequence of such legislation is that people are using reusable bags, which independent testing shows can often contain excessive levels of lead” said CCF Senior Research Analyst J. Justin Wilson. “As an advocate for consumer choice I believe consumers should have the option of using lead-free plastic and paper bags when they’re bringing home their groceries.”

 Other retailers testing positive for excessive levels of lead included Staples, Giant Eagle, Piggly Wiggly, Giant, Gerbes, KTA Superstore, Brookshire Brothers, Stater Bros., and, ironically, the District of Columbia Department of Environment.

 CCF focused on testing bags that were constructed from “nonwoven polypropylene,” which is the most commonly used material in reusable grocery bags. The material is typically made in China and can be produced in a variety of ways that either include or exclude toxic heavy metals.

 Read the full report here.