We departed Muscat and are sailing to Mumbai, India.  The   Arabian Peninsula  is a largely ignored part of the world by most visitors.  Under 1.25 million square miles are most of the world's oil.  It is relatively small compared to the USA, which has 3.8 msm and 335 million people.  The AP has a population of 86 million. Saudi Arabia  36.5 million Yeman  33.7 million UAE  9.4 million Oman  4.6 million Kuwait  4.3 million Qatar  2.7 million Bahrain  1.5 million The cities with the two largest population are in Saudi Arabia:  Riyadh 7.5 million and Jeddah 4.8 million. However, in 1950 the population was only 9.5 million, mostly Bedouins in the desert.  Then oil was discovered,  first in Iran in 1908  by the British.  But the story of oil goes back to 600 BC, when the Chinese first found this liquid.  More recently, there was Colonel Edwin Drake's 1859 oil well in Pennsylvania, and within a dec...

For Wednesday science-technology day I return to the  latest issue of  Energy Matters , compiled by the American Energy Society. India is not buying crude oil from Russia.  Politics?  No, cost. When the Ukraine War started, the West reduced imports from Russia, so  India became the second largest purchaser, next to China .  Then this sudden drop. One reason is that freight costs have risen, plus petroleum is now cheaper from places like the UAE. 91% of the global economy has pledged to cut emissions to zero.  However, a  lot of promises, but no action . That net zero pledge is supposedly for 2050.  Air travel will cripple that attempt. To begin, the U.N. climate science panel has said that man-made carbon dioxide emissions need to fall by about 45% by 2030 to limit warming to only 1.5 C ( 2.7 F ). Some say planting more trees can help.   I say planting more trees will hurt .  Most analysts don't consider methane in their calcul...

From  Worldometer  (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):          DAY     USA     WORLD     Brazil       India    South Africa June     9    1093     4732         1185       246       82 July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572 Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130 Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82 Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85 Nov ...

  From  Worldometer  (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):          DAY    USA    WORLD     Brazil      India      South Africa June     9    1093     4732        1185        246        82 July    22     1205     7128        1293      1120       572 Aug    12     1504     6556        1242       835       130 Sept     9     1208      6222       1136      1168        82 Oct     21     1225      6849         571    ...