"Bad weather in spring prevented honey bees in many areas from collecting nectar from early flowering crops such as oil seed rape, and the rain continued in many places throughout June and July preventing honey bees from foraging on later crops, " he said.

BBC: Honey harvest 'devastated' by wet summer

Deforestation rates in Peru are significantly lower than in Brazil, Ecuador or Colombia and the Andean nation has large reserves of oil, gas and minerals in its rain forests.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Zeroing in on Peru

Revelations that earlier this year a handful of oilfield pipelines (damaged by hurricane-force winds and rain) leaked small amounts of oil onto the island weakened his faith further.

FORBES: Energy

Environmental groups are already decrying new and expanding palm oil plantations in Borneo that they say are destroying rain forests and threatening orangutans.

FORBES: Magazine Article

But rain forecast for Tuesday afternoon could hamper the clean-up by carrying oil sheen towards nearby Lake Conway, a popular destination for bass, catfish, bream and crappie fishing.

BBC: Exxon Mobil oil spill subject to Arkansas investigation

If, for example, we were able to take care of the political chaos in Iraq and begin producing the kinds of oil that we always thought we could, that's great, but almost as sure as rain, instability is going to crop up somewhere else.

NPR: Gulf Oil Discovery Could Have Far-Reaching Effect