CAN CLIMATE CHANGE CAUSE EARTHQUAKE?

Can climate change cause earthquakes?

A new book suggesting a link between man-made climate change and increased seismic events has got some stick. A look at the science shows the theory isn't nearly as mad as it's made out to be - but it doesn't necessarily merit the apocalyptic publicity spin.
When Professor Bill McGuire of University College London introduced his new book Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes on the Guardian's science weekly podcast a few weeks ago, he started with a warning: "It does sound a bit mad, but it isn't..."
So do we face an age of "geological havoc" thanks to man-made climate change, as  McGuire told his audience at the Hay literary festival last week? Motor journalist and climate skeptic Jeremy Clarkson doesn't buy it, labelling McGuire's theory "science fiction" in the Sunday Times yesterday.
It's hard to see how anyone could invoke climate change and earthquakes in the same sentence without getting some stick, and Clarkson isn't the only person to treat the notion that a changing climate can affect the ground beneath our feet with derision. But a closer look suggests the theory not only makes sense, it also appears to have historical precedent.
Waking the Giant
McGuire's book examines what the planet has done in the past as the climate has changed naturally, and makes a convincing case for a historical relationship between natural climate change and some geological activity. Given the speedy nature of current climate change, it seems reasonable to take from this that our current human-driven climate change will have geological consequences - indeed, Clarkson concedes that the "theory that global warming can affect the fabric of the planet is based in fact".
However, some of the publicity around the book has prompted headlines which ask if climate change might " unleash geological mayhem". This seems quite unhelpful; after all, one man's imminent geological mayhem might be another's long-term rumble.
We had questions about exactly what kind of changes might occur, and when. So we got in touch with McGuire and asked him if he could give us a more precise view of what he thinks might happen.
The argument
First, though, the theory. The argument goes like this: when the climate changed naturally in the past, and the planet emerged from an ice age, large ice sheets covering much of the planet retreated. They were so heavy that the resulting release of pressure on the earth's crust caused it to 'bounce back', triggering earthquakes, tremors, and even volcanic activity along pre-existing fault lines.
Right now, the Earth is still responding to the end of the last ice age some 20,000 years ago when temperatures began to rise, causing large ice sheets to retreat, as shown here:

Rate of crustal bounce-back following the end of the last ice age, as modelled by Paulson et al. (2007). Source: NASA.
McGuire suggests that if man-made climate change leads to more large ice sheets disappearing - like the one covering Greenland - this could lead to more shakes, rattles and rolls.
What's the scientific evidence?
It's worth noting here that although the historical relationship between ice sheet retreat and geological change is pretty well documented, research looking at more recent man-made climate change is rather sparse. A 2009 meeting at University College London concluded that, since climate change in the past has probably increased some 'geological hazards';

"Anthropogenic climate change therefore has the potential to alter the risk of geological and geomorphological hazards through the twenty-first century and beyond. Such changes in risk have not yet been systematically assessed."

To us that does sound like an endorsement of the general theory. But the last part says that the risks of dangerous changes in the earth's surface due to man-made climate change haven't yet been intensively investigated. Roland Burgmann, a geologist at the University of California, Berkeley, told Live Science (in 2007) that changes in ice cover can affect the earth's crust, but more research is needed to work out the scale of the risk and where effects like earthquakes might happen.
What's the timeline?
It's also not very clear from the publicity around the book when exactly we're supposed to be worried about any 'geological mayhem' occurring. Are we talking in the next century, or the next millennium?
When asked on the Guardian Science podcast whether his worries about Greenland could materialise this century, McGuire says:

"Not by the end of this century, no [...]."

But contrast this with a video promoting the book, where McGuire says:

"[T]he worry is, that if we don't act very soon, then the Earth is going to bite back with a real vengeance over the next 70-100 years."

We put it to McGuire that this wasn't particularly clear. He replied that, although the Greenland ice sheet is not going to fully disappear by the end of the century (it would need to be kept at a sufficiently warm temperature for a few thousand years for that to happen), there is a study suggesting that we could see more earthquakes in Greenland in coming decades.
He also said that in Alaska "the response - in the way of earthquake activity and giant landslide frequency - is already apparent". Here he's probably referring to research like this paper showing an increase in small earthquakes between 2002 and 2006, thought to be down to ice loss.
Of the potential for volcanic activity triggered by climate change he told us:

"[W]e don't have a handle on how quickly we will see a response [...]. It may, however, be a while before we can distinguish any elevated level of activity from the normal background. In many ways, pinning down how quickly the solid Earth will respond this time round is no easy task and has to be speculative to some degree."

Essentially, this is the 'it's complicated' caveat so common in scientific conclusions. But as you will have spotted, these explanations are couched in considerably more careful language than some of the publicity for the book.
Following the Hansen model?
There does seem to us to be a disparity between McGuire's publicity for the book, with its emphasis on the most dramatic possible outcomes from his hypothesis, and the more careful statements he's made in scientific papers and outside the publicity circuit.
In discussing temperature change this century in his book, McGuire's predictions err towards the upper end of the scale, and he also talks of facing sea level rise comparable to that at the end of the last ice age, when sea level rose at an average of one metre per century - within the range of projected sea level rise for high-end scenarios of temperature rise. In both this, and his tendency to talk in stark language, McGuire seems to be borrowing a leaf from James Hansen's book.
McGuire told us in an email:

"We are currently on a high-end emissions scenario track and prospects for getting off this any time soon look pretty bleak [...]. These scenarios are Met Office Hadley Centre scenarios that build in carbon feedbacks, and are - in my opinion - very realistic. In relation to sea level, the consensus now is that a 1 - 2m rise is most likely by 2100."

McGuire is also clearly coming from a particular viewpoint:

"The language used in scientific papers is always careful, but released from the constraints of peer-reviewed journals we are able to express our thoughts in a more personal manner - as James Hansen in the US has done so effectively. My personal opinion is that climate change will be catastrophic - even without any geological response."

Perhaps it's not that surprising that book authors will try and make their work sound exciting. But there are no end of newspapers willing to pounce on catastrophic visions of the future in order to perpetuate the 'it's an apocalypse/it isn't happening' see-saw that makes up the worst end of climate reporting.
McGuire is not shying away from discussing high-end scenarios, which is fair enough. But in our view he should make clear that this is what he is doing, and also more carefully communicate the uncertainty in his work. After all, it appears to be decidedly early days for this research.
(Source-The Carbon Brief)

How the Nepal Earthquake Happened

(wall street journal)
 

A little before noon Saturday in Nepal, a chunk of rock about 9 miles below the earth’s surface shifted, unleashing a shock wave—described as being as powerful as the explosion of more than 20 thermonuclear weapons—that ripped through the Katmandu Valley.
In geological terms, the tremor occurred like clockwork, 81 years after the region’s last earthquake of such a magnitude, in 1934.
Records dating to 1255 indicate the region—known as the Indus-Yarlung suture zone—experiences a magnitude-8 earthquake approximately every 75 years, according to a report by Nepal’s National Society for Earthquake Technology.
The reason is the regular movement of the fault line that runs along Nepal’s southern border, where the Indian subcontinent collided with the Eurasia plate 40 million to 50 million years ago. 

Damage from Saturday’s earthquake in Katmandu, Nepal. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images 

 

“The collision between India and Eurasia is a showcase for geology,” said Lung S. Chan, a geophysicist at the University of Hong Kong. The so-called India plate is pushing its way north toward Asia at a rate of about 5 centimeters, or 2 inches, a year, he said. “Geologically speaking, that’s very fast.”
As the plates push against each other, friction generates stress and energy that builds until the crust ruptures, said Dr. Chan, who compared the quake to a thermonuclear weapons explosion. In the case of Saturday’s quake, the plate jumped forward about 2 meters, or 6.5 feet, said Hongfeng Yang, an earthquake expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Saturday’s quake was also relatively shallow, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Such quakes tend to cause more damage and more aftershocks than those that occur deeper below the earth’s surface.
After an earthquake, the plates resume moving and the clock resets. “Earthquakes dissipate energy, like lifting the lid off a pot of boiling water,” said Dr. Chan. “But it builds back up after you put the lid back on.”

‘Earthquakes dissipate energy, like lifting the lid off a pot of boiling water. But it builds back up after you put the lid back on.’
—Lung S. Chan, geophysicist at the University of Hong Kong

Nepal is prone to destructive earthquakes, not only because of the massive forces involved in the tectonic collision, but also because of the type of fault line the country sits on. Normal faults create space when the ground cracks and separates. Nepal lies on a so-called thrust fault, where one tectonic plate forces itself on top of another.
The most visible result of this is the Himalayan mountain range. The fault runs along the 1,400-mile range, and the constant collision of the India and Eurasia plates pushes up the height of the peaks by about a centimeter each year.

Despite the seeming regularity of severe earthquakes in Nepal, it isn’t possible to predict when one will happen. Historic records and modern measurements of tectonic plate movement show that if the pressure builds in the region in a way that is “generally consistent and homogenous,” the region should expect a severe earthquake every four to five decades, Dr. Yang said.
The complexity of the forces applying pressure at the fault means scientists are incapable of predicting more than an average number of earthquakes that a region will experience in a century, experts say.
Still, earthquakes in Nepal are more predictable than most, because of the regular movement of the plates. Scientists aren’t sure why this is.
The earth’s tectonics plates are constantly in motion. Some faults release built-up stress in the form of earthquakes. Others release that energy quietly. “Some areas, like Nepal, release energy as a large earthquake, once in a while,” said Dr. Chan. “These regions all have different natures for reasons geologists don’t really know.”

 

Reinvigorate Trade to Boost Global Economic Growth

 

Reinvigorate Trade to Boost Global Economic Growth

By Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, IMF
Address at the U.S. Ex-Im Bank Conference
Washington, DC, April 23, 2015

Good afternoon. I would like to thank Susan Axelrod for her kind introduction, and thank you to the U.S. Ex-Im Bank for giving me the opportunity to speak about the importance of expanding global trade – especially at this point in time.
Let me start by saying something that often gets lost in the nitty-gritty of trade discussions. If you care about growth and innovation; if you care about jobs and the real incomes of the middle-class; if you care about poverty reduction and greater economic fairness; if you do care about all these things, you need to be serious about fostering global trade.
The IMF cares deeply about these issues and has been committed to the idea of open trade that is – ideally – underpinned by multilateral agreements and institutions. More than 70 years ago, the founding fathers of the IMF created an institution that was designed to prevent a return to the self-defeating economic policies of the Great Depression – including trade protectionism and competitive currency devaluations.
Let me quote Article 1 of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement: “The purpose of the IMF is to facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade, and to contribute thereby to the promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment and real income.”
Fast-forward to the global financial crisis of 2008, which marked the latest turning point in global trade. When that crisis struck, trade protectionism became the dog that did not bark. Contrary to some expectations, the world did not see a rampant rise in old-style trade barriers. And trade volumes rebounded after a sharp initial drop. This was a reflection of the unprecedented level of international cooperation that prevented a global economic meltdown.
But the financial crisis has helped put a damper on growth in global trade. 2015 is likely to mark the fourth consecutive year of below-average trade growth, with at least one more year of disappointing growth to come, according to the latest WTO predictions.
In other words, one of the engines of global economic growth has slowed down, because of cyclical forces but also because of structural factors. This trend must be reversed.
Reinvigorating trade is not just a “nice-to-have”. It is an “essential-to-have” – to help prevent what I have called the “new mediocre” of low growth over a long period. This is why the international community, including the G-20, is pushing for trade reforms as part of a comprehensive policy package to lift growth and employment.
With this in mind, I would like to touch on three issues:

• Why do we need a better trade engine?
• How can we shift global trade into a higher gear?
• Which trade policies should economies pursue?

1. Why do we need a more powerful trade engine?
Let me start by briefly outlining the case for a better trade engine. This audience knows it well, but sometimes we get so involved in the details that the big picture gets lost. Trade is good for growth. How?
a. Reforms – including new trade agreements – encourage countries to further specialize in the goods and services in which they have a comparative advantage. By using their existing resources more efficiently, they can help lift world production and consumption.
In other words: specialize in what you do best, trade for the rest. The classic gains from this strategy include lower prices for consumers and companies – and therefore higher real incomes – and a greater variety of goods and services available for purchase.
b. Trade reforms can also have a powerful indirect effect on growth by igniting and amplifying other structural reforms. For example:

• Trade reforms can increase external competition in product and services markets.
• They can encourage key infrastructure investments – think of new ports and new roads.
• They can spur innovation through R&D and “learning by exporting”.
• And they can strengthen institutions by encouraging better governance and a better business environment.

c. All this would help policymakers to reverse the decline in productivity growth in advanced economies and boost productivity in emerging and developing economies. Recent IMF research shows that lower productivity is a key driver of declining potential growth rates in advanced economies and – perhaps even more so – in emerging market economies.
What this means is that we have reduced our estimate of the speed limit at which economies can currently drive. In advanced economies, for example, potential annual growth fell to 1.5 percent in the past two years, down from 2.2 percent in 2001-07. Reversing this trend is essential to lift global growth over the medium term.
d. In summary, open trade is an important contributor to job creation. As you, Fred [Hochberg] said yourself, “millions of American workers have jobs that depend on trade”. In 2014, for example, exports of goods and services directly and indirectly supported an estimated 11.7 million U.S. jobs. And by encouraging greater specialization, trade fosters industries that are more competitive and, therefore, more sustainable.
And let’s not forget the impact of trade on global poverty reduction. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty over the past three decades.
2. How can you shift global trade into a higher gear?
So, I think there is a compelling case for a better trade engine. But how can policymakers shift global trade into a higher gear – my second point.
For at least three decades before the 2008 financial crisis, global trade regularly grew at twice the rate of the global economy. It is now expanding at – or below – the rate of the global economy. This slowdown is largely because of two structural changes in global trade.
a. One is the maturing of existing global value chains – in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia – while new value chains are not being formed.
To reverse this trend, policymakers need to unlock the trade potential of other regions. South America, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa: these are the regions that would greatly benefit from being better integrated into global value chains. It would be good for them and good for the world.
b. The second factor holding back trade growth is the slowdown in trade liberalization in recent years. For example, multilateral negotiations have stalled, and regional trade initiatives have not matched the transformative effect of, say, the North American Free Trade Agreement.
This is why policymakers need to press ahead with negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP, as well as on its transatlantic cousin, the TTIP.
Research by the Peterson Institute finds that the TPP could boost world income by $295 billion per year over the next decade. It also finds that the TTP would raise U.S. incomes by 0.4 percent, or $77 billion, per year. The U.S. could gain a comparable amount from TTIP, according to estimates by the European Union.
We all know there are considerable discussions over the models that are being used to generate these hard numbers. But I think we get the point:

• Recent developments in the U.S. Senate suggest that these important trade deals can be areas of cooperation between the Congress and the President.
• On the other side of the Atlantic, progress on trade would be immensely helpful in lifting growth and confidence in the European Union.
• The Japanese government is also keen to use the TPP to inject greater competition into its low-growth economy.
• And emerging and developing economies would benefit from better integration into the global economy.

So, on all sides, there are good incentives to cut deals. Political leadership is now needed to push these deals over the finish line.
c. The same goes for the WTO deal struck in Bali at the end of 2013. This agreement, if fully implemented, would cut trade costs and deliver an economic boost of US$1 trillion annually. The Bali deal is particularly important for developing economies because of its focus on trade facilitation, which involves reducing red tape and streamlining customs.
Let me be clear: there are signs of progress on trade. But the global community can – and should – be much more ambitious.
3. Which trade policies should economies pursue?
Which brings me to my third point – what are the trade policies that economies should pursue?
The IMF has recently reviewed its own policy advice to make sure that trade remains an essential element of our operational work. This includes our technical assistance and our annual assessments of our members’ economies.
Of course, policy advice has to be country-specific. But let me give you our view on three broad categories:
First, most advanced economies will be largely focusing on the “21^st century trade issues” such as opening services markets and making regulatory systems more coherent. The TPP is a good example because it seeks to address crucial issues such as intellectual property protection and treatment of state-owned enterprises.
Second, many emerging market economies, especially in South Asia and Latin America, can still benefit greatly from integrating into the global economy through traditional trade liberalization. This may include unilateral efforts to open up trade and encourage foreign direct investment, especially in infrastructure. In Asia, in this decade alone, overall national infrastructure investment needs are estimated to be $8 trillion.
Third, for developing economies, trade and integration into global value chains should be a central plank of their development and growth strategies. Again, trade facilitation will be key. The IMF stands ready to support this transition to a less protected environment. Think of the fiscal implications of lower tariffs and the challenges of sequencing reforms. On all this, the Fund can provide hands-on advice and training.
Conclusion
Let me conclude by quoting one of the sharpest thinkers of his generation. Two hundred years ago, the French philosopher Montesquieu said – and I will give you the French version first:
“Le commerce guérit des préjugés destructeurs: & c’est presque une règle générale que, partout où il y a des mœurs douces, il y a du commerce; & que, partout où il y a du commerce, il y a des mœurs douces.”
“Trade is the best cure for prejudice. It is an almost general rule that, wherever there is good citizenship, there is trade, and that, wherever there is trade, there is good citizenship.”
The most destructive economic prejudice is trade protectionism. Policymakers must remain vigilant about the old-style, in-your-face protectionism and about the new protectionism that is based on non-tariff measures.
Smart efforts to reduce and dismantle these barriers should be strongly supported. This is why the IMF welcomes preferential trade deals such as the TTP – which we believe should eventually be open to other countries that meet its requirements.
The key question is how to make preferential deals more coherent with multilateral efforts. How can we achieve eventual multilateralization – preferably in the context of the World Trade Organization? How can we avoid trade fragmentation – the “spaghetti bowl” of competing regimes and preferences?
I strongly believe that global deals deliver far more than any other approach. Rather than simply bolstering existing trade connections, multilateral deals allow new trading relationships to be formed. They are a global solution to a global challenge.
The last major global trade agreement is now 20 years old. The world can do better than that. As I said at the beginning, if you care about growth, you need to be serious about global trade. It is now time to get serious about trade.
Thank you.

India's Saving Investment Gap

 

India’s saving investment gap

India’s saving rate at % of GDP is increasing at the rate of 2.10% per year from 2000 to 2012 , on the other hand  , Investment as % of GDP  is stepping up at the rate of 3.70% per year during the same period. This domestic imbalance creates several problems in macro  economic variables which ultimately produces disequilibrium of the economy.India’s saving Investment gap is accelerating since 2004 ,but it was favourable before 2004.In the figure the blue line shows the investment rate where as red line is the saving rate .It is very much clear in the figure that the gap is widening .

          The government should observe this situation seriously and take appropriate measure to restore balance in domestic economy. In China, Korea and in some other Asian economies the situation is reverse, that why they are easily overcoming the external balance. If we are able to balance this fundamental gap ,then we may tackle the unemployment problem more easily. Fiscal policy alone cannot make up this gap but needed suitable  monetary policy also. Obviously , the integration of external balance policy as well as fiscal monetary policy will be justified.Moreover, nobody cares.