There are 24 days left in 2009. Two historic events commemorate December 7, both bordering on tragedy: the attack on Pearl Harbor and the opening ceremony of the Copenhagen Climate Conference.
The "Day that Will Live in Infamy", the speech delivered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on December 8, 1941, devastated the American Navy in the Pacific, but left untouched our aircraft carriers and submarines. Battleships don't win wars. The Japanese armada was comprised of 6 aircraft carriers, 24 support ships and 353 aircraft. I was, apparently, a spectator, as my mother talked about carrying me (I was 15 months old) and said she pointed to the smoke coming from Pearl Harbor. Nearly 2500 were killed and more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps. (In comparison, just about 3000 were killed on 9/11/2001, triggering what might well be WW III.) There was an expectation during that period of an invasion by Japanese forces. Just above, the Arizona Memorial, which will receive a $58 million makeover, tripling the size, for, ironically, this has become the most visited attraction in Hawaii, drawing more than million and a half each year. It is free.
We now mostly remember Pearl Harbor through films: In Harm's Way with John Wayne, From Here to Eternity where Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed won best supporting Oscars, Tora! Tora! Tora! (which means Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! in Japanese) and Pearl Harbor (2001). The most memorable scene no doubt was Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster on the beach (the book by James Jones was a lot more graphic) enjoying eternity:
This is the beach today next to the Halona Blow Hole Lookout.
Now, about that opening ceremony, welcoming the delegates is Lars Loekke Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark. It is said that 192 nations are represented and that there will be 15,000 participants.
The 12-day event will draw 110 heads of state, including President Barack Obama, who is scheduled to arrive during the final two days when agreement will be reached. But on what?
Many times saying nothing is better than saying something useless. Take Afghanistan, for example, now that Obama has announced a 30,000 troop surge with a "promise" to begin returning the military in 2011, it was left to Secretary Robert Gates to say, well, maybe not, for Al Queda or the Taliban or Islamic terrorists, are extensions of a two millennia war, and even these fundamentalists will be smart enough to let things rest for a couple of years until Obama can declare victory. World War II lasted four years, the current Afghanistan skirmish double that, and is destined to linger for as long as the Vietnam War, which was something on the order of 15 years, depending when you say it began, for Americans, at least.
With planned good timing, though, President Obama was able to get his Environmental Protection Agency to follow-through on his Administration making the necessary climate change decisions in case Congress does not, so he will have some liberty to sound convincing in an empty sort of way. He will get a health plan for Christmas, but there are just too many Democrats in the Senate with fossil fuel connections. And they will not allow Lisa Jackson, director of the EPA, to make those decisions. Nothing is better than cap and trade, and even this won't pass next year, unless tens of millions perish from a suddenly hot summer of 2010...which almost certainly won't happen, because the warming will only be 4 degrees in 100 years, or just 1/25 of a degree Fahrenheit per year.
My prediction is that there will be many pledges to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but that of a few key nations, namely, the U.S., China and India, will be wanting in relativity. There will be unenforceable promises and mention of aid to needy countries. But with stabilized global temperatures over the past decade and conferees freezing in the Scandinavian cold, there will be no definitive, legally binding, agreement. It will be Kyoto light, very light. I say, on to Delhi in August of 2012.
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The Dow Jones Industrials inched up 1 to 10390, while world markets were mixed and Japan jumped another 145 to 10,167. I keep mentioning Japan because of some readership from that country, but also because the DJI and Nikkei have been exchanging leads for a year now. But this like comparing rice and mashed potatoes, for the Nikkei 225, which is in yen (1/90 the dollar today) reached a high of 38957 in 1989 (twenty years ago). The high in this century was 18,300 in 2007, when the all-time high of 14,198 was attained by the DJI. Anyway, you get a sense of how depressed the Japan stock market is when you note that it is today only about a quarter what it was in 1989, and, in terms of 2009 dollars, just one-seventh (1/7) of that high. Or look at it this way. If you had invested $100,000 into the Japan stock market in 1989, it would today be worth just a bit over $14,000. If an American had invested $100,000 at the peak (2007), it would still be worth close to $94,000.
Gold fell $3/toz to $1159 and crude oil dropped to $74/barrel.
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Tropical Cyclone Cleo is at 50 MPH and strengthening in the Indian Ocean, moving west, and seems to be headed nowhere important.
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Just another sunset in Hawaii yesterday...with a Nikka Yoichi scotch, now noted to be the best single malt in the world.
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