Global Watch Cat is a web-based magazine offering concise analysis of the domestic and international practices which impact our world.

The magazine relies upon the premise that although oceans and ideologies may separate nations, we are all closely bound to one another through our shared use of this planet.  Whether linked by a common ancestry, tied to one another by currency and trade, or united in the human pursuit of an existence that yields meaning, the world is far smaller than it seems and more fragile than we recognize.

As our human intellect has heightened, so too have the stakes in the political, economic and technological arena.  There are no longer easy choices as they relate to the raw materials of civilization: nation-building, natural resources, citizenry, energy use and currency.  Global Watch Cat seeks to demonstrate that what we do as stewards of the Earth has an impact not only upon those who walk beside us, but also those who will walk in our footsteps.

Although nations continue to enact policies and practices which consume limited resources or expose other countries to risk, much goes unnoticed by the general public.  To this end, Global Watch Cat will examine destabilizing political action and assess the ripple effects of international practices in an effort to synthesize the impacts that each may spark upon the global stage.  Further, as consequential stakeholders in the affairs of all regimes vying for finite resources, the editorial staff will explore global resource allocation and scarcity as well as worldwide energy consumption and the practicability of alternative energy options.  Global Watch Cat will also study the sustainability, resource needs and policy demands of a global population in excess of seven billion souls.

The mounting international debt crisis, the disconcerting prospects of a descent from peak oil, the proliferation of additional nuclear-ready nation-actors, the sad realities of famine which plagues two continents, and the emergent scarcity of waning natural resources: any one of these weighty issues could result in devastating consequences.  We are on the precipice of transformative changes in our world which directly stem from societal actions and failures to act.  Many of these coming changes will have a significant impact on the way we live.  We will utilize the platform of Global Watch Cat to highlight the risks and synthesize domestic and international policy so our readers will better understand how it “all fits together.”

When no one was looking, the world suddenly became smaller.  Our technological trailblazers have equipped humankind with the gift of instant communication and readily accessible data.  We can now see exactly what is happening in our world at any given moment and discuss it with friends or with strangers.  What happens on the densely-populated streets of Lagos, in the coal-choked skies above Harbin, and under the resource-rich Siberian continental shelf will impact all of us.  It is our hope that by connecting with Global Watch Cat, readers will think beyond the stories of celebrities, popular baby names and pet costumes that the mainstream media delivers and consider the more crucial global data points that will shape our world so that we all can become better-informed stewards of this shrinking planet.

Global warming (or some other polar climate changing condition for those who do not buy into the whole global warming argument) is creating a shipping lane along the northern coasts of Norway and Russia during the summer months, a waterway that has not existed since the Ice Age.  The Eurasian portion of the route, called the Northeast Passage (or the Northern Sea Route) is the polar equivalent of the Holy Grail for oceanic transport companies.  Transit along this passageway reduces the sailing distance between Rotterdam and Yokohama (two of the world’s most well-developed ports) from 11,200 nautical miles to 6,500 nautical miles and cuts 40% off of the shipping costs.  Historically, goods flowing from Rotterdam to Yokohama were shipped via the Atlantic, into the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, past the Somalian pirates, around India and through Indonesia.  With the potential Northern Sea Route, the geo-political landscape greatly changes.

According to United Nations data, over the past three decades, temperatures above the Arctic Circle have risen at about twice the rate of the global average, and Arctic sea ice contracted to its smallest area on record in 2009, covering 22 percent less than the previous low in September 2005.  To the West, Canada and the US are already partial beneficiaries of a melting Arctic as the Northwest Passage from Seattle to Rotterdam has the potential to save shipping companies equipped to tackle the icy waters of Canada 2000 nautical miles of time/transit and allows them to avoid the Panama Canal.  The fly in this ointment:  Canada is already claiming control of the entirety of the Northwest Passage.

But control of the sea passage is not the only high stakes angle in play along the Arctic waters.  According to the US Geological Survey, the Arctic accounts for 1/10^th of the world’s known conventional oil reserves and 25% of the undiscovered reserves.  According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China is well-aware of the resource upside of global warming and has designated significant resources in constructing an Arctic research laboratory and conducting polar studies.  Russia’s NATO ambassador has stated that it would “not be defeated” in the “fight for resources” in the Arctic region.  Folks, notice the word choice?  Those are military terms.

The US supported a revolution in Panama and spent more on the Panama Canal than it had on any construction project the Nation’s history.  Egypt actually enslaved its own people to construct the Suez Canal.  The Northwest and Northeast Passages are critically important to global transportation and the energy resource fronts and there will be conflict over control and access.  A new oil rush is coming,… and if 25% of the world’s reserves are in the Arctic, you can bet the US will be there,… providing some humanitarian support.

It is interesting to note the leadership changes that have resulted from the Eurozone crisis seemed to follow a similar path.  Four of the five governments were either Socialist or Populist pre-crisis, and all five moved toward the right.  This is not an unexpected result, since all five countries required austerity measures and some level of public service limitations. Even Italy’s center-right government formerly led by conservative  Silvio Berlusconi, moved further right.  But what else can we derive from this trend?

The debt systems in these five countries failed because governmental leaders did not see that uncontrolled governmental spending brought about by increased tax revenue and inflated real estate values would likely lead to financial disaster if growth slowed.  Unchecked national expenses continued to surge because more citizens benefitted from public supports and programs because governmental coffers were full.  The problem: it’s not so easy to just cut the expenses off.  Reductions to programs like unemployment benefits, services to the aged or disabled, farming or housing subsidies will have an adverse effect on critical segments of the population.  So this is how GlobalWatchCat thinks this will play out….

It seems clear from the leadership changes that have occurred, the electorate of the above-noted countries recognize that the sovereign debt crisis will not be resolved through Socialist philosophy.  Hence, citizens in the affected countries have moved towards conservatism in order to initiate change.  These leaders will struggle with how to divvy up a shrinking pie, and ultimately these countries will need to call for even greater austerity which will further polarize the right and left.  Some of those measures will likely be extreme and those European countries that emerge from the crisis will be perceived as Fascist or undemocratic as a result of the practices and policies required to ensure economic survival.

I seem to recall that we have seen this story somewhere before…. let’s see… currency was devalued and the citizenry were living in spartan conditions….Europe was in flux… social policies were non-existent… and some countries which espoused Socialist policies (as a backlash to years of austerity) started to emerge….

In 1999, the United Nations estimated that we would reach the 7 billion mark in 2013. Humans, being the overachievers that we are, met this troublesome milestone two years early. And here is the scary part: since the turn of the new millennium, we have been told that we are much more aware of the impact of unchecked population growth and we are much more proactive with respect to woman’s health needs; we have been told how fertility rates are declining and how the use of contraception has reached the developing world. I don’t see it. We went from 6 billion to 7 billion in 12 years. That’s a growth rate of 1.3%. It’s lower than it was in the 60′s, but it’s still too high.

In the UN’s 1999 Report, “The World at Six Billion,” the United Nations Population Division suggested that we would attain the following milestones:

• 7 billion in 2013 (14 years from the 6B threshold);
• 8 billion in 2028 (15 years from the 7B threshold);
• 9 billion in 2054 (26 years from the 8B threshold);
• 10 billion in 2183 (129 years from the 9B threshold)

The United Nations Population Division surely can see that the data plots an ever-decreasing interval for each successive billion in growth up to 1999. What possible factor could they have considered to account for a sudden reversal in the trend line? For the UN’s numbers to work, as the population reaches 8 billion and 9 billion, the growth rate will need to slow to less than 1% – a growth rate that we have not even sniffed.  And the UN projection of reaching 10 billion in 2183 is absolutely ludicrous. That would require a growth rate of a mere .082% (not .82%, but .082%) over that 129 years. Who at the UN reviewed this document?

Assuming that there are no cataclysmic events, Global Watch Cat is betting the house that the 10 billion population mark will be attained by 2050 – that would still require 38 years of less than a 1% growth rate, a ratio we have well-exceeded for the last 7 billion souls.